


The Butterfly Bride

by khilari



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Canon Typical Everything, M/M, Past Child Abuse, nothing is graphic but things are creepy, the non-con is Touga saying "yes" in situations where he's not allowed to say "no", touga's word of god/movie backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-06-18 12:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 18
Words: 55,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15485649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/khilari
Summary: Touga thinks becoming the next Rose Bride is the first step in his new plan to grasp world revolution, although it turns out Akio did not fully explain the amount of stabbing involved. Nanami and Saionji think Touga should stop manipulating them, but they can't exactly leave him to suffer.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Touga does so much manipulation on Akio's behalf during the series that I couldn't shake the idea of him inheriting Anthy's job. This was intended to just be a one shot of the first duel, but apparently I needed very little encouragement to continue it.

‘You see,’ says Akio, swirling wine in his glass. ‘The Duels cannot continue without a prize.’

Touga, sprawled on the white couch across from him, looks up. ‘Unfortunate.’

‘Do you still desire the power of Dios?’

‘Of course,’ Touga says easily, eyes narrowed under his lashes. ‘But that’s for Duelists to win.’

‘And for the Rose Bride to embody.’ Akio takes a drink, the brilliant red of the wine vanishing into his mouth.

‘But never possess.’ Touga holds his languid pose despite the tension running through him. ‘Isn’t that true?’

Akio stands up and comes to kneel by Touga, one hand toying with his hair while Akio’s voice rings, soft and confiding, in his ear. ‘The purpose of the Duels is to forge a sword worthy of a Prince inside one of the Duelists. If I win the Duel called Revolution, I take it and open the way. If not…’

‘…then they can.’ Or whoever they give the sword to. Whoever they would hand their heart to at their moment of triumph. ‘Are you using the same Duelists again?’

‘Your sister and the vice-president were promising candidates.’

Touga’s heart is thrumming in his throat. They’d want him, or want to save him if he seemed too far under Akio’s power. That had been Utena’s strength, hadn’t it, that she’d done it for Himemiya? Her weakness too, since Himemiya had been Akio’s, but Touga… ‘You don’t trust me this much.’

‘A gamble,’ Akio murmurs. ‘For both of us.’

‘For one round of Duels,’ Touga says. ‘For one year.’

‘Of course. I won’t ask for your whole life.’ A hand strokes Touga’s hair in a parody of comfort. ‘One year. Agreed?’

Touga closes his eyes, mind ticking over plans. Nanami or Saionji? Neither of them are really Princes, but they’ll fight if pushed. Maybe it will be enough? It’s a better chance than he has alone, isn’t it? If Akio thought _he_ could still be shaped into a Prince he would want him as a Duelist, and Akio knows this game better than anyone. ‘Agreed.’

Akio’s hand comes to rest on his chest and Touga feels the heat of his sword rising to the surface even as he sees the light glowing between dark fingers. He flinches reflexively from the intimacy, dimming the glow for a moment, but forces himself to relax. He wants this. He chose this. He just has to let it happen.

Akio’s hand closes around the hilt and he pulls… the sword of Dios, almost. It’s not quite the same shape as it was, a little longer and broader, the hilt covered with curliques of gold and lacking its jewels. ‘Close enough,’ Akio says, and thrusts it back into Touga’s chest.

It hurts. There’s no blood, just a flash of light and gone, but it hurts like he’s been run through, leaving him arched off the couch and panting.

The blood comes a second later with another searing pain that skewers his leg, hamstringing him, blood staining the white couch below him. Another runs through his abdomen, something pierces his hand, and after that it hurts too much to register individual pains.

‘Shhhhhh.’ Akio kisses him, pleasure warm and welcome in a sea of pain. ‘Keep breathing, it will be all right.’

Touga whines and clutches at Akio, then forces himself to lucidity. ‘You… did this.’

‘The world did this.’ Akio sounds infinitely sad, noble and regretful. ‘The Rose Bride suffers in place of the Prince.’ Then he gently pulls free of Touga’s grip and walks away, his feet ringing on the floor.

Touga closes his eyes and breathes, forcing himself to take control over his pain-wracked body. _Go limp, pain is easier to bear if you don’t fight it. Accept it, since it’s too late to prevent it. Step outside your body, balance there, this will be too much if you feel it completely._ Old lessons. Reasons, seen too late, why the Rose Bride had to be him. But he can do this.

When he opens his eyes the pain is still there, but the blood is gone.

* * *

Kyouichi returns from changing back into his school uniform to find Touga sprawled on the floor of the kendo hall, half propped up against a rack of bokkens. There’s something about his pose that reminds Kyouichi of a doll, as if he’s just lying where he’s fallen with no attempt to move himself into a comfortable position. Only his heaving chest shows any sign of motion.

‘Saionji.’ Touga’s eyes focus on Kyouichi’s face without his head moving, so that he’s looking out of the corners of them. His voice hitches, catching in odd places. ‘I may need some help getting home.’

Kyouichi kneels down beside Touga, hands clumsily opening his jacket, looking for a wound and finding nothing but sweat. ‘What happened? Are you hurt?’

‘A… miscalculation.’

Kyouichi rocks back on his heels. ‘What the hell kind of miscalculation? What happened? Touga!’

Touga moves for the first time, so languidly it hardly seems deliberate, the doll sliding away from its support enough for the head to tilt down, dropping a smooth curtain of hair over fever-bright eyes. ‘The Duels needed a prize.’

‘No.’ Kyouichi recoils. Light from the window falls into his eyes with the change in position and turns Touga into a silhouette, the bokkens pointing down like the hilts of swords plunging into his body. ‘God, no. Touga, what have you done?’

‘It was necessary. He didn’t say it would hurt.’

Kyouichi wraps his arms around Touga’s shoulders and sets about easing them both to their feet, feeling as if Touga might shatter if he jars him. His own clumsiness has never frightened him so much. ‘How bad is it?’

Touga hisses a laugh between his teeth. ‘I didn’t know it was possible to feel this much pain.’

* * *

Nanami, Kyouichi and Touga sit in the ballroom of the Kiryuu mansion. Touga’s sipping sparkling liquid from a wine glass, but it’s soluble pain killers not champagne. There are letters on the arms of Nanami and Kyouichi’s chairs, with red seals.

‘What do we do?’ Nanami asks, bleakly.

Kyouichi’s carving something, occupying his eyes and hands with it. Nanami can see the shimmer of light as the blade shakes in his hand. ‘The previous Victor freed their Rose Bride.’

Nanami casts a look at Touga, trying to skewer him with it, but it slides off his bland expression and shadowed eyes. ‘You _want_ us involved.’

‘Of course he does,’ says Kyouichi. ‘But can we really leave him like this?’

Touga smiles slightly and drains the glass. ‘I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t intending for you to Duel. But I really did misjudge the consequences of doing things this way.’

‘And there will be other Duelists,’ Nanami says, voice rising. ‘Which you _did_ know. And they’ll be able to do whatever they like to you.’

Kyouichi’s hands fall still, his face flushing with shame at a memory. Touga only smiles.

‘We won’t let them,’ Kyouichi says, resuming his carving. ‘As long as he belongs to one of us, it will be fine.’

Nanami swallows. Memories of a tree flash before her eyes, of red apples out of reach. ‘I hate you,’ she hisses, with sudden venom, standing up to stare down at her brother. ‘I hate you for doing this, for using yourself like this, for making _us_ do this, making _me_ do this. I don’t want to own you. I don’t want you at all. And still I can’t… I can’t…’

‘Am I really meant to believe that?’ Touga purrs. ‘That you don’t _want_ me.’

‘Stop it!’ Kyouichi snaps, dropping the bird he was carving to the floor. One of its wings snaps. ‘Touga, you’ve got what you want. Nanami, should I take the first Duel?’

Nanami takes a deep breath. ‘Please.’

* * *

The Bride takes the gondola even before it’s revealed to the Duelists. Touga appreciates not having to walk up all those stairs as he watches the spiral shadow of the staircase whip by outside the bars.

A butterfly lands on his hand, a cabbage white. Another perches on his chest. One lands on his nose, its spreading wings obscuring his vision and he thinks when its wings fold again he’ll see his father’s face. Instead there are only more butterflies, landing everywhere, on every inch of the skin his school uniform should be covering. He backs against the bars at the edge of the gondola, grits his teeth, feels phantom hands clutching his wrists and tells himself it’s memory not magic. There’s no one here but him.

In a flurry of wings the butterflies are gone and the arena is around him, the castle winking down from overhead. He is wearing a suit like the student council uniforms, rather than the normal Ohtori uniform he’s been wearing this year, all white and edged in thick black trim. A cape falls against his back and when he holds out one edge of it he can see the markings on it, like butterfly wings.

Funny. He’d expected roses.

Nanami and Saionji reach the arena first. Nanami walks over to inspect the outfit, grabbing one edge of the cape. ‘Where on earth did you get this?’ she asks.

‘I didn’t,’ Touga answers. ‘It just appeared on the way up.’

‘Huh.’ She drops it. ‘Can you do Himemiya’s thing with the frills, now?’

Touga laughs. ‘If you win me, I’ll try it out for you.’

She’s wearing a student council uniform, toned down from the one she wore last year. Yellow trousers with a white top, although she’s kept the pink trim. It’s paler, though, close enough to Utena’s hair colour to make him wonder if she remembers more than a nameless Victor as well.

Someone else reaches the top of the staircase and he’s surprised to see Keiko. For her part, she’s surprised to see Nanami, her expression of eager anticipation turning into a scowl. ‘Step away from the Bride until you’ve won him,’ she snaps.

Nanami turns and glares back. ‘He’s still my brother.’

‘We all know that’s not true,’ Keiko says, viciously.

‘You haven’t won him yet, either, so he can talk to anyone he likes,’ Saionji says firmly.

The next person to emerge at the top of the staircase is Tsuwabuki Mitsuru. Touga has to hide a smile. What is Akio thinking? What would the poor child do with Touga?

‘Tsuwabuki!’ Nanami says, tone one of reprimand. ‘What are you doing here?’

Mitsuru blushes. ‘I’m not…’ he glances at Touga with something like appalled fascination. ‘It’s really true?’

Ah, _well,_ Touga has been something of an ideal for the boy, hasn’t he? This must come as a shock. ‘It’s true, Mitsuru-san,’ he says, deliberately demure to shock the boy further.

The last Duelist is the girl from Juri’s locket, looking proud in her new uniform. Shiori. If she wants him it will be mostly as a status symbol, more likely she wants to surpass Juri by winning this game that Juri failed at.

Saionji steps forward, between Nanami and Touga behind him and the rest of the Duelists in front. ‘I call the right of first challenge.’

‘I accept it,’ Keiko says, instantly.

The others step back to the edges of the arena, leaving Saionji and Keiko facing one another. Saionji looks over his shoulder. ‘Touga, prepare us.’

Touga holds up his empty hands to show that he has no roses but suddenly he does. A pale green bloom and one the colour of dried blood. Saionji won’t look at Touga as the green rose is slipped into his breast pocket. Keiko gazes into his eyes, lips slightly parted, as he places the blood red one. Afterwards he backs away to the side, grateful no one will be drawing a sword from him for this first Duel. He’s not sure how he’ll handle that on top of the pain.

Nanami’s hand in his startles him out of his thoughts. ‘I don’t think that’s allowed, Nanami-san,’ he says.

She lets go, frowning at him for the honorific. ‘You’re pale,’ she says. ‘Isn’t anyone allowed to care about you now?’

‘I’m honoured by your thoughtfulness,’ he says. Nanami takes it as sarcasm, as she was meant to, but in truth he is.

* * *

God _damn_ Touga, Kyouichi thinks viciously. Damn him to hell for being this stupid. Kyouichi knows the look in Keiko’s eyes as she draws her katana. There’s no doubt she’s in love with Touga, or the image of him, and now she has the chance to own him, to make him be that image for her and only her. Kyouichi knows that look intimately, knows it from the inside as his hand lands across Anthy’s cheek, and he can’t bear it. 

_I’m sorry._ The words flash through his mind. _I’m sorry, please. Please let me defeat her._

Keiko lunges and he parries, throwing his whole body into the blow so that she’s knocked off her feet. She comes back up with vengeance in her eyes, stabbing up at his rose from below. He twists and lets her sword cut a shallow line across his arm. Anything, rather than the rose.

_You understand. The one whose rose is scattered loses, it doesn’t matter whether you live or die._

Had he said that? To who?

The moment’s distraction lets Keiko get too close, inside his reach again, and he shoves her off with the pommel.

‘I will have Touga-sama!’ she says. ‘I’m not just an ordinary girl any longer. I can have anything!’

‘You don’t believe that,’ Kyouichi tells her. _Neither of us has ever believed that._

‘I do believe it! Because it’s true! I won’t let anyone hold me back now, not Nanami, not you!’

She swings recklessly but her recklessness is her undoing. Kyouichi thrusts into the gap she leaves and petals fly into the air. The bells ring deafeningly.

The look Keiko sends him is pure hatred. He understands it too well not to pity her. ‘That’s only the first Duel. I haven’t given up,’ she says.

He nods. ‘I know.’

The Duelists leave, Keiko storming off, Shiori following less certainly, Mitsuru with a smile and a wave for Nanami, until it’s just Saionji, Nanami and Touga left on the arena.

‘I think I’m meant to say something,’ Touga says, thoughtfully, eyes glazed. ‘Something about being your Bride.’

‘For god’s sake, don’t,’ Kyouichi growls. He wraps an arm around Touga’s waist to steady him, realising as he does that Touga’s school uniform is back.

* * *

Nanami trails Kyouichi and Touga down the stairs, watching Touga stumble on half the steps. He should have taken the gondola, but he wouldn’t, so now she has to worry about him. It’s too familiar, this anxiety, so easily stirred by anything happening to her brother.

Had Anthy been in this state all the time? How often had she fallen when slapped simply because the pain left her no energy to resist? Or perhaps it hadn’t been as bad for her… Anthy wasn’t human, was she? How long could someone normal… normal-ish, perfectly human at least… survive something like that?

‘Are we going back to your dorm?’ Touga asks as they finally reach the bottom of the stairs.

Nanami skips forward to walk beside them. ‘It would make more sense for Kyouichi to move in with us for now,’ she says. ‘We’ve got more room and then we’d both be on hand if you need us.’

‘I’m not an invalid.’ Touga straightens slightly, pulling away from Kyouichi. ‘I’m not really physically damaged at all.’

‘What is it then?’ Kyouichi demands. ‘Spiritual damage?’

Touga shrugs. ‘Nothing either of you can fix.’

Nanami looks away quickly and bites her lip to hold the tears back.

Those come later, after Touga is asleep, looking small in his four-poster bed. Kyouichi hurries off to make tea and she thinks he’s embarrassed by her tears until she realises he’s hiding his own.

‘It’s awful, isn’t it?’ she says, when both of them are more or less dry eyed and she’s sipping at a hot cup of tea. ‘Will making it through the Duels really help him?’

‘It’s what he wants us to do,’ says Kyouichi.

Nanami’s lips twist, as if the tea is suddenly bitter. ‘Does that mean it’s a good idea?’

‘Do you have a better one?’ he snaps.

‘No,’ she bites back. ‘But what good does it do to pretend he knows what he’s doing just because we’ve always been followers?’

‘Do you want to drop out?’

‘Well, I’m not fighting _you_ but I suppose I’ll come to the rescue if you lose.’

‘I won’t lose!’

They stare at each other and then look away.

‘It really is awful,’ Nanami says, sadly. ‘But I can’t think of anything else to do either.’

* * *

They’re weak, Touga thinks, turning away from the door to the kitchen to head back up to his bedroom. The shadows of the house envelope him. Weak. Sentimental. As Nanami says, they’re followers, so they could at least do that right and stick to the plan he’s laid for them.

Princes aren’t followers. Princes aren’t weak. Is he putting his faith in the wrong people?

_Are you putting your faith in anyone at all?_

The question doesn’t come in Utena’s voice, but it comes somehow from her memory.

‘Should I be?’ he whispers to the empty hall.


	2. Chapter 2

Tending the roses is Touga’s job now, which he doesn’t particularly mind. He’s always liked the little greenhouse, although his tendency to take girls there has come back to bite him since today they’re coming to him.

‘I’m afraid I’m seeing someone, although I regret having to refuse such beauty,’ he says, leaving another girl disappointed but blushing. She shuts the greenhouse door after her, at least. With how often it’s been opened he was starting to regret bringing Tora here. Her little striped cat face pokes out of a rosebush as he thinks of her and he holds out a hand for her to come and rub against. ‘You’re better company than any of them,’ he tells her as she purrs.

He’s teasing her with one of the long stemmed, thornless roses, a bright red one, when Keiko arrives. The door opening distracts him enough that Tora manages to grab it between her front paws and kick a scatter of petals into the air with her hind ones.

‘Is that the kitten Himemiya got you?’ Keiko asks, as Tora rolls to her feet and starts washing herself.

‘You remember?’ Touga says. ‘You weren’t at that party.’

‘Nanami complained about it enough. She thought it was impudent of Himemiya.’

Touga smiles. ‘Nanami took care of Tora while I was ill, though.’

Jeaousy and disgust flash across Keiko’s face and Touga can feel a Duel in the offing. One he’s encouraging, of course, although he wishes he knew whether it was redundant. Utena fought Saionji twice, once without the sword of Dios and once with, so he’s working on that pattern. Akio could stand to be a bit more forthcoming if he wants Touga’s help arranging things.

‘Any of us would have helped if she’d allowed us to,’ Keiko says. ‘Do you remember… that day in the rain?’

An umbrella, a look both undemanding and wanting, as if being able to serve him in the tiniest way was all she could imagine hoping for. Even in a half-aware state he’d been drawn to that. ‘I’m afraid not.’ He moves away from her, picks up the watering can. ‘I’m sure you were lovely.’

‘Cut me a rose.’ Keiko’s voice is suddenly hard. ‘A green one.’

‘Of course, Keiko-san.’

* * *

Kyouichi tries to focus on his practice and not on the green rose lying on the floor where he dropped it. It’s very pale, much paler than the roses that represented him last year, and it almost glows against the dark wood of the floor.

Touga steps out of the shadows like he did so often last year. It makes Kyouichi tense reflexively with the memory of past torment. ‘I see you’ve received Keiko’s challenge,’ Touga says.

Kyouichi sets his bokken in the rack. ‘I suppose you gave her the rose?’

‘Are you worried?’ Touga slips an arm around him from behind, breath ghosting against his ear. ‘You beat her once without the sword of Dios, with it you should have no problem.’

‘I don’t need the sword of Dios to beat one of Nanami’s little henchgirls.’

‘But you’ll have it… won’t you?’

Kyouichi feels himself tremble, knows Touga feels it too. ‘I never had my sword drawn,’ he says. ‘But Nanami says it isn’t painless and you’re already hurt.’

Touga’s arms wrap around his chest, a soft mouth nuzzles at his jaw. ‘You have to draw the sword, old friend. We have to follow the rules, to —’

‘— to do as your master says?’ Kyouichi wrenches away from Touga and turns around, pushing Touga back against a wall, hands digging into his shoulders. ‘Why? Why are you like this with him, his obedient lapdog more than ever? What has he ever done that benefits anyone but himself? I won’t follow his rules!’

‘But those rules will open the gate to eternity for us,’ Touga says. ‘Don’t you want that, old friend? To be together, forever, in a place nothing can reach us?’

Kyouichi’s hands are losing their strength, resting on Touga’s shoulders more than clutching. It’s not true. There’s no eternity waiting for him in the castle, he’s accepted that. The only reason to fight is because Touga needs him, not because of some hollow illusion dangled before him. Spires of light rise before his eyes, silver sunlit trees, a sunny afternoon that never fades due to evenings or storms. ‘Touga.’ It comes out as a sob, his eyes swimming with tears.

‘Everything is within our grasp if we only reach for it,’ Touga says softly. ‘Everything.’

It’s not true. It’s not true.

Is it?

* * *

Nanami turns the opera glasses Touga gave her over in her hands. She’s nervous, both due to being so far from Touga during a Duel and due to being at the Chairman’s tower alone.

‘There’s a balcony,’ Touga had said. ‘Above the student council balcony. You can see the duelling arena from there.’

‘And how many Duels did you watch?’ she asked.

Touga smirked. ‘All of them, of course.’

The elevator opens and Nanami is surprised to see Juri and Miki gazing out over the forest, Juri looking completely wrong in puffed sleeves and a short skirt. Between them, resting on one of the crenellations, is a vase of creamy white roses.

‘What are you doing here?’ Nanami demands.

Miki lowers his opera glasses and smiles at her disarmingly. ‘Hello, Nanami-kun.’

‘We were worried,’ says Juri, without lowering hers. ‘What has Touga got himself into?’

‘Trouble,’ says Nanami, with a sigh, raising her own glasses. Keiko’s waiting in the arena, Kyouichi is climbing the stairs with a look of ferocious determination. ‘You know Takatsuki’s involved?’

‘I do know who the student council are this year, yes,’ says Juri.

‘I was planning to stay on the student council myself until I realised the Duels were continuing,’ says Miki. ‘I didn’t think they could happen twice.’

‘Twice?’ says Juri. ‘Ruka was a former Duellist.’

‘They’ve probably been doing it forever,’ Nanami snaps, a vision of dark bodies and flowing purple hair floating unwanted before her eyes. ‘But you’d think he’d stop once she _left_ him.’

Touga emerges in his flurry of butterflies, cloak whipping out behind him like wings, and they fall silent.

* * *

The look of longing on Saionji’s face as he takes in Touga and the castle with one glance is everything Touga could have hoped for. Saionji’s always been so easy to rile up, emotions barely below the surface. For a moment Touga remembers a seven-year-old with soft eyes and a tremulous frown, deeply unhappy at being sent away from home so young. It was that unhappiness which had drawn Touga back then, bringing out something between the desire to comfort and pleasure at seeing someone hurt. It’s the same feeling now, if in different proportions. Once upon a time he’d mostly wanted to help.

The roses appearing in his hands don’t surprise him this time. After placing Saionji’s he lingers, leaning gently into Saionji. Saionji is trembling but he pulls Touga closer and places a hand over his chest.

‘Power of Dios, placed within me,’ Touga recites. ‘Serve your purpose. Come forth!’

Saionji’s eyes are half-closed, regarding Touga with the same focus he shows to a carving he’s working on. He draws the sword with the same delicacy of touch. It doesn’t hurt that much. Except Touga’s already in so much pain that the pull in his chest makes his head spin. His body tries to resist this new hurt and suddenly it’s like his insides are being yanked out through his chest.

‘Grant me the power to bring world revolution!’ Saionji declaims as the sword comes free.

Touga’s world goes dark.

* * *

‘Touga!’ Kyouichi cries, eternity forgotten in an instant as Touga crumples to the floor, hair spreading around him like a pool of blood. Kyouichi should have known better, had known better and had let himself be talked into this anyway. It feels like betrayal and he’s not sure which of them has been betrayed. He kneels and pulls Touga’s head into his lap. Touga’s breathing, hair fluttering around his lips. ‘Touga, wake up. Touga!’

Kyouichi’s head is wrenched back by a hand curled into his hair and a sword slices down to remove the rose from his chest. Pale green petals go up in a spray and bells ring.

‘ _You!_ ’ Kyouichi shouts, scrambling to his feet, the sword of Dios still in his hand.

‘I won.’ Keiko’s flushed with triumph, giddy with it.

Kyouichi can’t find words for the fury and despair he’s feeling, the desperate wounded anger of a child cheated for the first time, as if he had still thought, after everything, that life might be _fair_. He screams and whips the blade at her, making her dodge back. Maybe she’s won. Maybe it’s too late. But he can’t stop himself because right now all he wants is blood.

* * *

‘He hasn’t changed, after all,’ says Juri.

Nanami throws down her opera glasses. ‘You don’t understand anything.’ She runs to the elevator, already knowing she won’t get there in time to make a difference. Somehow, even though she’d left them watching the arena, Miki and Juri step in beside her.

* * *

Touga opens his eyes. Saionji is charging at Keiko, sword aiming not for her rose but for her head. Always so easy to rile up, but this time Touga has miscalculated. It seems to be all he does lately.

He pushes himself to his knees, gathers his strength. ‘Kyouichi!’

His cry doesn’t come in time to stop the blow but the sword vanishes before it hits, dissolving into light and then nothing. Saionji slumps to his knees, all the fight going out of him, and Keiko considers him for a moment before sheathing her sword and stepping around him.

‘Touga-sama,’ she says, holding out a hand to him. ‘I won.’

‘Keiko-sama.’ He doesn’t try to stand up, the arena is still swimming around him. ‘I am the Rose Bride. From today, I am your flower.’

‘Touga.’ Saionji has pulled himself together and come to stand behind Keiko. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Don’t talk to him.’ Keiko grabs Touga’s hand and glares at Saionji. ‘Touga-sama is my Bride. I’ll take care of him now.’

Touga shoots Saionji a wry look from behind her. He resents this talk of taking care of him more than of possessing him. Being desirable is one thing, being pitiful quite another. ‘As Keiko-sama says,’ he murmurs.

‘But what about the stairs?’ Saionji asks.

‘I’m sure we can manage,’ Keiko answers.

Touga stands up. ‘I’ll take the gondola. After all, it’s intended for the Bride.’ He hates that thing, but right now he’ll take its insinuating butterflies over the humiliation of people arguing about how best to help him down a staircase. ‘See you at the bottom, Keiko-sama.’

The gondola remains just an elevator all the way down.

* * *

Nanami is so relieved to see Touga standing at the bottom of the staircase that she throws herself into his arms without considering either that she’s no longer comfortable enough with him for that or that he might not be in the best state for it. They wind up on the ground, Nanami on top of Touga, and she scrambles off, blushing and hating herself for blushing. Miki looks worried and Juri looks coolly amused.

‘Sorry,’ Nanami squeaks. ‘Are you all right? What happened? Is Kyouichi… and Keiko?’

‘They’re both fine, the sword vanished before he could hurt her.’ Touga takes her shoulders and looks at her seriously. ‘What happened while I was out? Keiko won?’

Nanami scowls. ‘She cut off Kyouichi’s rose while he was checking on you.’

‘So that’s why he was so angry.’ Touga’s expression is far away, busy sorting that information into ongoing plots. He shakes his head. ‘Let’s get home. I need to pack and if we can be gone before Keiko makes it down the steps she can’t forbid me from talking to you while I do it.’

‘Need a hand?’ Juri asks. She’s holding one out, but sounds coolly disinterested in his wellbeing. Touga takes it and stands up.

‘I wasn’t expecting the student council reunion,’ Touga says when they reach the mansion. ‘Want to come in?’

They do. Nanami makes them tea while Touga coaxes Tora into her cat carrier.

‘You’re taking a pet?’ Miki asks.

‘Isn’t every witch allowed their familiar?’ Touga replies.

‘So that’s what you are, now,’ says Juri.

* * *

Keiko’s furious when Touga isn’t waiting for them at the bottom.

‘What are you worried about? He’ll be arriving at your dormitory later tonight,’ says Kyouichi and hopes he’ll have a chance to say goodbye before then.

He’s still surprised to find Touga at the Kiryuu mansion, drinking a cup of tea with a bag and a cat carrier beside him.

‘Touga,’ he says, pleadingly. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I know, old friend.’ Touga puts down his empty cup and stands up.

Kyouichi can’t meet his eyes. ‘I failed you completely.’

Touga stepping into his personal space is expected, the brush of lips against his forehead is not. Then Touga picks up his luggage and bows to the room. ‘Farewell, my friends.’

He’s gone before any of them can respond.

Kyouichi meets the eyes of the former student council and can’t stop the blush spreading across his cheeks.

* * *

Akio is stargazing when Touga finds him.

‘I wondered whether to expect you,’ Akio says. ‘You weren’t answering your phone.’

‘Keiko-sama decided I didn’t need a phone,’ Touga says, sitting down opposite Akio. ‘Did that Duel go the way you hoped?’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘I think it’s a problem if the sword can’t be drawn without the Bride fainting. I’m only human, you know.’

‘The Bride is an integral part of the Duels, in ways that are not immediately obvious,’ says Akio. ‘As the moon is integral to a boat race.’

‘So, we’re agreed it would be better if I were conscious for them. Any ideas to help with that?’

‘Just one.’ Akio gestures for Touga to come to him, which Touga does warily, and then pushes him down to his knees. Akio’s hand comes to rest on Touga’s chest. ‘Practice.’


	3. Chapter 3

Keiko is sleeping curled on her side, a small, sated smile on her face. Touga, sitting up against the headboard with one knee drawn up against his chest, strokes a lock of hair out of her face almost tenderly. Sex has, as ever, been a welcome distraction and her awestruck possessiveness was strangely endearing. Saionji hasn’t been very satisfying in that regard, lately. Squeamish, for some reason, about owning him.

Taking his phone was uncalled for though. Sleep is impossible, as it often is, and now he’s left without any distraction from the empty night. A pain cutting through his ribs makes him turn aside from Keiko, biting back on a groan. Maybe he should take some pain killers. They’re not doing much, though. He’s not sure whether that’s because it’s magical pain or whether over-the-counter pills aren’t strong enough. For a moment he wonders about finding something stronger and dismisses it, concluding that while his father probably knows how to find illegal drugs he, personally, has no idea.

Keiko stirs. ‘Mm. Touga?’

‘Right here, my princess.’ He slides back down onto the bed beside her, propping himself on one arm to look down into her face.

She smiles up at him and traces his lips with her finger. ‘Don’t talk to Nanami tomorrow. Don’t even look at her.’

‘You might keep me longer if you don’t antagonise her,’ Touga says, catching her hand in his free one and pressing kisses to her fingertips.

Keiko frowns, though. ‘You’re meant to believe in me.’

‘Sorry, Keiko-sama.’ He leans in, a veil of red falling about her face. ‘But while you’re a lovely woman, you haven’t yet won by skill.’

Keiko shoves him away, a hand on his cheek, and Touga gracefully retreats, turning onto his back and throwing an arm over his face.

‘Don’t talk to her!’ There’s a tremor in her voice now, a dark undercurrent. ‘You won’t mind, will you,’ she adds, softly. ‘You don’t even like her.’

‘Of course not. She’s a very common sort of girl.’ _Like you._

‘Good.’ Keiko presses against him and Touga turns towards her, ready for another distraction.

* * *

Nanami spends the next few days trailing Touga and Keiko around and hating herself for it. She knows what everyone must think — she’d been so shameless last year — and it’s not as if anything is even happening. Touga treats Keiko the way he would treat any girl, except that this time his attention remains on her. Keiko calls him Touga-sama and drapes herself over his arm, and makes him bentos which they share on the school field. They couldn’t be any less like Duelist and Bride.

It’s the cat that gets to Nanami in the end. Keiko and Touga are standing in the greenhouse, laughing at something. Keiko’s the one holding the watering can, askew in one hand, while she rubs the cat’s ears with the other. The cat’s purring up at her as she never, never did for Nanami who fed and played with her for _weeks_ when she doesn’t even like cats.

Nanami shoves the door to the greenhouse open and yells, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ without being sure whether she’s addressing it to Touga or the cat.

‘I was helping Touga-sama out with the roses,’ says Keiko. Touga’s looking up and to the side. It would hurt less if he hadn’t ignored Nanami so many times without anyone telling him to. Pushing her to run after him, or maybe just tired of her… maybe he really was tired of her, maybe it wasn’t a game then, maybe it isn’t orders now. Nanami doesn’t want to own him, but she can’t stand this indifference. Maybe she can _make_ him notice her.

‘I want to Duel,’ she says.

‘There has been no letter from Ends of the World, yet,’ Touga says, gaze still fixed on the distance. ‘It’s not possible to Duel.’

Keiko’s fist hits his chest and he reacts to it as little as he would if Nanami had done the same. ‘Don’t talk to her,’ Keiko snaps.

‘Sorry, Keiko-sama. I was just remarking.’ He sounds abstracted, more than obsequious, as if Keiko isn’t very interesting to him either. It soothes Nanami even as it ruffles Keiko.

Keiko says, ‘You can’t Duel yet, so get out of here.’

‘It’s a public area,’ says Nanami, unsure what she’s going to do if she stays but unwilling to leave.

‘Then we’ll leave.’ Keiko tugs Touga out by the wrist, which he acquiesces to with something like amusement, only turning back to pull the door closed.

Nanami rubs a hand over her eyes, feeling stupid. Of course he’s fine. Well, not fine, that pain… she shudders as her too-fertile imagination provides a shadow of Touga as a pin-cushion of sword blades. No, not fine. But not in danger from Keiko, who is just another girl to him as all girls are. All Nanami has been doing is making a fool of herself and giving in to the jealousy that she’s been trying so hard to leave behind.

A soft mewling makes her look up and the cat is pawing at the door. There’s food and water tucked under a pink rose bush. ‘I guess he’s been keeping you in here while he’s in class,’ Nanami says. The cat paws at the door again and Nanami shakes her head. ‘You’d get lost or hurt. He’ll be back for you soon, so don’t worry.’

She’s careful not to let the cat slip through the door when she leaves.

* * *

Kyouichi opens the door to his dorm and Nanami barrels into him, one fist smacking into his chest. He wobbles and catches the doorframe for balance.

‘You jerk! You useless jerk!’ she shouts.

‘Oi! Oi, Nanami!’ Kyouichi realises her eyes are wet. ‘Is Touga…?’

‘He’s fine.’ She sniffs and tosses back her hair. ‘We were meant to be in this together and you haven’t even been to school in days. You left me to make a fool of myself and it’s all your fault.’

He grabs her wrist before she can hit him again. ‘It’s not my job to stop you doing that,’ he says haughtily.

Nanami glares at him. ‘Of course you’re going to be like _that_ about it.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ The door to one of the other dorms opens and Kyouichi adds, ‘Come inside.’

He stalks about getting tea for her while she sits with the stark shadows from his blind falling over her face like cage bars. ‘I don’t know why you think my being there would help,’ he says, setting a mug in front of her with a sharp clink. ‘I’ve already failed.’

‘Coward! You just want an excuse to be out of this stupid game.’

‘Don’t call me that, you little —!’

‘Why not? Isn’t it true?’

They’re both leaning forward over the table, Kyouichi meeting a glare the same heated violet as his own. He turns aside, the lost, tired feeling of the last couple of days coming up like a tide to drown the heat of his anger. ‘What do you want me to do?’

Nanami slumps, face down on the table. ‘I don’t know. At least come back to school.’

Kyouichi pats her on the shoulder uncomfortably and exhales a sigh. ‘Okay.’

It’s hard to meet people’s eyes at school the next day, even people who don’t have any idea what happened. It’s not helped by the realisation that the rumour mill has accurately and unfortunately picked up on him being out of school coinciding with Touga’s new relationship with Keiko.

‘Saionji-sempai never did pay any attention to love letters,’ he hears someone say.

Someone else laughs. ‘Not ones from _girls_.’

‘But wasn’t he pining over that Himemiya girl all last year?’ Someone else puts in, which doesn’t make him feel much better, and he silences all three of them with a glare before striding off. Damn this whole school and everyone in it.

He pretends not to be aware of Touga crossing the room to take the desk behind him for maths. A tap on his shoulder forces him to meet a cool, amused gaze.

‘Hello, Touga,’ he says.

Touga nods and touches a finger to his lips.

‘You’re not allowed to talk to me, are you?’

Touga shakes his head and then smiles at him teasingly. He pulls out some sheets of paper from his bag and Kyouichi’s expecting a message when he hands them over. Instead he gets neat rows of formulae.

‘You took _maths notes_ for me?’ Kyouichi’s voice is too loud, too incredulous. Isn’t it the kind of thing anyone might do for a friend? Touga’s innocent look says as much, but his eyes sparkle with delight at catching Kyouichi off guard. It’s forgiveness, Kyouichi thinks. Or a welcome back. Touga being allowed to speak to him wouldn’t even make it easier to figure out what he’s trying to say. ‘Thanks,’ Kyouichi says, belatedly.

Touga slips into his seat as the teacher comes in. A moment later the tug of fingers tells Kyouichi that Touga’s playing with his hair.

* * *

Saionji’s presence is a warming thing, even with his tense back and bowed shoulders radiating guilt and frustration. He flares and spits like a poorly tended wood fire, but he also radiates heat and Touga has always been cold.

A week ago Touga had come downstairs to find Saionji cooking breakfast, wearing a frilly apron over his uniform and holding a spatula above an omelette pan. Nanami, still in her frilly nightgown, had been holding a magazine up to him.

‘The sparkly one’s cute, but I like that colour better,’ Saionji was saying earnestly.

At the time Touga had thought, _what useless Princes,_ and now he feels vaguely nostalgic for something that’s barely even in the past.

It only takes stepping alongside Saionji as they leave class, brushing their hips together as he does, and then Saionji is following him along the corridor.

‘Have you heard the gossip?’ Saionji asks. Touga gives him a flirtatious look and Saionji looks away sharply. ‘Not helping.’

They emerge into the courtyard, exposed like a stage set to the gallery of the school buildings and their arching windows with a backdrop of sun drenched white. Keiko emerges from another building, on cue, deep in a conversation with Aiko which cuts off as she notices them. Touga walks towards her, Saionji hesitating and trailing behind, unsure whether to walk away or stay beside him.

‘I told you not to talk to him,’ Keiko says.

‘I haven’t said a word,’ Touga assures her. ‘We were just walking together.’

Keiko’s gaze flicks to Saionji, he can see her reassessing the rumours. Nanami, coming from the same class as Keiko, enters the courtyard too and stops to take in the scene. Touga’s expecting the thud of a fist against his chest, or the crack of a slap against his cheek, but Keiko decides to pull him down to her level first. The sharp tug on a fistful of hair sends the buildings out of focus. Suddenly the blinding white is bedsheets, partly draping a figure that towers over him where he crouches on the bed. The fist in his hair pulls him closer and he follows, loosely, flopping like a broken puppet.

The sting of a hand against his cheek snaps him back to a world where the sun beats down on a white courtyard and faces like shadows peer down at him. He’d planned to be coolly disdainful of her anger, but now he’s kneeling at her feet, shock and fear in plain view. He turns away, shaking his hair over his face, struggling to replace his cracked mask.

Running feet patter by him and there’s the sharp sound of another slap. Keiko gasps, ‘How dare you?’

‘How dare _you?_ ’ Nanami shouts, shrill with outrage. ‘After school in the arena.’

‘There’s no letter —’ Keiko begins.

‘I don’t care!’ Nanami screams loud enough for the whole school to hear. ‘I challenge you! Or are you too scared to face me?’

‘I’ll face you! I’ll defeat you!’

The bell ringing for the next class clears the courtyard. Touga thinks he might be alone when the tentative touch on his shoulder comes. Keiko is looking down at him with a wide-eyed expression of loss.

‘I’m sorry, Touga-sama,’ she whispers.

Touga stands up. ‘You should be more careful with your things, Keiko-sama.’

They stare at each other, Keiko trying to pretend she hadn’t seen something else beneath her Prince’s mask, and then they both turn away.

* * *

‘Let me go,’ Nanami hisses, as Kyouichi steers her down the hall by a tight grip on her shoulder.

‘You’re Duelling her tonight anyway, you’re not going to help matters by fighting her in the courtyard,’ Kyouichi snaps back. ‘He doesn’t need protecting right now, anyway, he and Keiko have to get to class too.’

‘Yesterday I would have sworn he didn’t need protecting at all,’ says Nanami a bit more calmly. ‘He hardly seemed to care that she owned him. And then… What happened just then?’

‘I don’t know.’ His hand trembles and his grip on her tightens still further.

‘Kyouichi, you’re really hurting me,’ Nanami says.

He snatches his hand away as if she’s burnt him. ‘Sorry.’

* * *

Kyouichi sits as far away as possible from Juri and Miki while still getting a good view of the arena. Both of them watch him with judgemental gazes until he’s taken his place.

‘I heard Nanami and Keiko got into a fight over Touga in the courtyard,’ Miki says.

Juri looks at Kyouichi. ‘I wonder what really happened?’

‘It’s not your job to collect rumours anymore,’ says Kyouichi, looking at the arena already, although he doesn’t bother to look through the opera glasses with no one there.

‘I still take an interest,’ Juri says.

‘Is that why you’re here?’ Kyouichi kicks his heel against the stone. ‘How did you know about this place?’

Juri shrugs. ‘Touga told me last year.’

Kyouichi’s grip on the opera glasses tightens until one of the lenses cracks. ‘Why _you?_ ’

Miki, with his own opera glasses at his eyes, interrupts. ‘It’s starting.’

* * *

Touga emerges from the gondola with his head tilted upwards and arms slightly outspread. It’s a good pose for having a cloak flare dramatically, he feels. It’s also a pose he’s held all the way up, mind elsewhere as he lets the butterflies land on him, little legs tickling across his skin. At the top he bows his head slightly to Keiko and moves over to stand behind her, everything still feeling blessedly far away.

Nanami emerges at the top of the staircase, scowling and holding that odd, curved sword of hers. No dagger, though. Her rose, when it appears, is a yellow so pale it’s almost cream. Touga’s hand brushes her breast as he places it and she jolts, looking up at him almost brokenly.

He kneels to let Keiko draw the sword, it’s easier for both of them. For her because she can reach, for him because he can concentrate on not passing out without having to worry about remaining standing. She’s rough and grasping, eagerly groping at the hilt and tugging. Touga leans backwards, mouth opening soundlessly on pain, and for a moment he sees a dark room, an orange umbrella, but he blinks it away as Keiko holds the sword aloft.

He remains kneeling, head bowed and hands clasped on his knees, grateful to be conscious and unwilling to push his luck.

The clash of swords comes quickly. Nanami’s fast and Keiko’s ruthless, but it’s clear they’ve both learned by imitating him rather than having formal training. Flattering, but not the best way to learn.

‘You’re always coming between me and Touga-sama,’ Keiko pants. ‘All I did for you, the way I served you, it makes me sick to think about. After all that, you had no right, no right at all.’

A blow takes Nanami off her feet and she falls, curling her body around her rose as she does. ‘I’m sorry for the way I treated you, but you used me too. Pretending to be my friend when what you wanted was my brother.’

‘You knew that from the start and you never cared except to enjoy the power it gave you. Acting as if you were better than us and not the worst insect of all! Even now, you want to keep him for yourself.’ A second blow sends Nanami's sword flying.

‘I am sorry, Keiko-san.’ Nanami rolls to her knees, eyes narrow with determination. ‘But he’s still my brother and I have to protect him.’ She throws herself forward, hand closing over Keiko’s around the hilt of the sword of Dios.

Nanami’s rampant protective streak has only ever been matched by her ignorance as to what Touga might really need protecting from. Maybe she’s finally got it right, though. In any case, there’s something noble about her now, fierce and focused with her hair tumbled about her face. Keiko kicks her in the stomach and Nanami gasps but takes it, free arm held up to protect her rose. There’s something familiar…

The light pouring down from the Castle startles all of them. Keiko bares her teeth and frantically tries to rip the sword away from Nanami, but Nanami is drifting to her feet as if she’s suspended in liquid. There’s an image, superimposed, pink hair and blue eyes, an expression both fierce and kind.

Nanami slips behind Keiko, turns the sword towards both of them, and severs her rose in a shower of petals.

* * *

Nanami is shaking. The previous Victor, the one whose name is on the tip of her tongue now, had had that happen all the time without, apparently, minding. Nanami isn’t sure she likes it, being taken over by a Prince, even an annoying, tomboy one who certainly wouldn’t mean her any harm.

Touga is kneeling where he’s spent the entire Duel. When Nanami calls him he looks up and she realises his eyes are wet. It makes her feel a bit firmer. _One_ of them needs to hold it together. Hasn’t it always been that way? One of them hurting and the other helping, and if no one’s in pain they simply drift apart.

‘We need to get home,’ she says.

Touga stands up with surprising grace. ‘Of course, Nanami-sama.’ He bows to her. ‘I am the Rose —’

‘Shut up!’ Nanami snaps. ‘You’re not my stupid flower, so don’t say it!’

Touga laughs. ‘But I am. Didn’t you win me, Nanami-sama?’

‘Then do as I say and be quiet. At least until we’re home.’

He bows again and walks away to the gondola.

Nanami feels guilty before she’s halfway down the steps. She just needed time to gather herself without Touga poking at something raw, that’s all, she’ll tell him he can talk again when they meet at the bottom.

* * *

Kyouichi catches up with Touga and Nanami as they exit the forest. He’s run most of the way from the viewing platform and he’s out of breath, but they look even more shaken than he feels. ‘What was _that?_ ’ he asks. ‘Who was she?’

Nanami and Touga stare at him in concert. ‘Don’t you remember the previous Victor at all?’ Nanami asks.

Kyouichi shakes his head. ‘I wasn’t even sure it was a girl.’

‘She was bossy and nosy and kind,’ says Nanami. ‘She always tried to offer advice about things she didn’t understand at all and she was so _naive_ she really thought Himemiya was some innocent princess. I tried to warn her, but she just —’

‘So did I,’ says Touga, voice distant. ‘Saionji came with me. But she was determined.’

‘And now she’s stuck in that stupid castle forever, being some kind of mystical power,’ says Nanami.

‘Maybe it’s not really her,’ Kyouichi says, a bit hopelessly. _Touga was in love with her,_ he thinks. _I barely remember her, but I remember that. I’m not sure Nanami isn’t in love with her too._ ‘I should head home. I’ll see you both tomorrow.’

‘Wait!’ Nanami calls, before he’s gone three paces. ‘Aren’t you coming home with us?’

‘Why?’ Kyouichi asks. ‘It’s not like Touga needs to stay with me this time.’

‘Of course,’ Touga says. ‘See you tomorrow.’

* * *

‘That was not the power of Dios,’ says Akio.

He’s sprawled across a couch, Touga sitting beside it with his head resting against Akio’s stomach. ‘No,’ Touga says. ‘That was the previous Victor. Why?’

‘I should ask you,’ says Akio. ‘The power of Dios is summoned through the Bride. A flawed summoning means a flawed Bride.’

Akio’s voice is smooth and gentle, but he’s angry enough to make Touga slip further from his body, making himself ready to not feel whatever pain might be about to come. ‘Sorry,’ he murmurs. ‘If I’m not suitable for your purposes, perhaps you should replace me.’

Akio’s hand strokes carelessly through his hair. ‘No. You’re doing very well, all things considered. But you should remember, that girl was not a true Prince.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some inspiration is, obviously, being taken from the 20th anniversary manga, but what's going on here is a bit different.
> 
> Also this chapter really took the warnings up, despite not being more graphic than the previous two. Touga having sex with Keiko is just very questionable.


	4. Chapter 4

Lightning flashes and Kyouichi unconsciously holds his breath until the rumble of thunder follows. The books in front of him are blurred by afterimages and he can’t concentrate anyway — he doesn’t like storms.

The phone ringing pulls him out of his thoughts and he picks it up. ‘Kyouichi, is my brother with you?’ Nanami asks without preamble.

‘No, why?’

‘Because he’s not here,’ Nanami says, sounding stressed. ‘He normally only visits the Chairman after Duels and on Saturdays and I can’t think where else he’d be in this weather.’

‘I’m sure he’s fine. He can hardly have been spirited away.’ Kyouichi bites his tongue as another flash of lightning sears through his blinds. Why did he put it like that? Why is the past so present? And is it, perhaps, not just this present for him? ‘I’ll look for him,’ he says, cutting off whatever Nanami was saying. ‘If I find him I’ll tell him to call you.’

‘Thank you.’ Nanami hangs up the phone.

Kyouichi picks up his umbrella, black with a brilliant red poppy design, and sets out along a route he remembers all too well.

As a child it had been far enough for a bike ride, but it’s not that long a walk for an adult, especially to the church rather than the clearing where they’d practiced. The church is so exactly as he remembers it, a stark sillhouette with the storm behind it, that he finds himself hesitating, short of breath. Touga isn’t here to run ahead of him this time, to pull him along in the wake of someone braver. Kyouichi shakes his head and pushes open the door.

There are no coffins. Where her coffin once stood a figure in dark clothes lies on the floor, curled on one side with red hair spread out like a pool of blood. It drains the strength from Kyouichi’s fingers, makes him drop the umbrella, leaves him cold and shivering as if the rain had drenched him after all. It’s deliberate, he thinks a moment later, the pulse of anger pushing back the all consuming cold. It’s too neat a tableau for Touga to set up if he didn’t expect Kyouichi to stumble on it.

‘What are you doing?’ he strides over and another flash reveals the water on the floor around Touga, the soaked hair and clothes. ‘Did you even bring an umbrella? You’re going to get sick, Touga.’

Touga’s eyes open slightly, glittering in the dark. ‘You haven’t changed a bit, Saionji.’

‘Neither have you.’ He feels on firm ground with that one. Both of them have a penchant for dramatics, but he’s not the one lying on the cold stone floor of a church while soaked to the skin.

‘Maybe not,’ Touga says. Thunder rolls around them. Kyouichi wants to do something about how wet Touga is, at least wring out his hair, but then he remembers how Touga reacted to Keiko pulling it and winds up just kneeling beside him, hand hovering awkwardly. ‘Do you remember the girl in the coffin?’ Touga asks.

‘Of course.’

‘That was the previous Victor.’

‘She was? Is that why she won, because she’d seen Eternity?’ Kyouichi’s voice startles him with how childish it sounds.

‘Perhaps. Perhaps it was because she was a good person.’

‘Then what hope do we have?’ Kyouichi asks.

‘I don’t know.’

Silence falls around them, heavy and haunted. Kyouichi shivers. ‘Touga?’ he says. ‘Why are you doing this?’

Touga rolls over to look up at him, outside the wind howls. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What are you hoping to gain? You’re arrogant enough to go after power for its own sake, but not when you’re the one suffering for it like this.’

‘Meaning I’d normally find someone to do the suffering for me?’

‘You’re the one that said you wanted to be like him.’

Touga’s eyes look almost blind in the next flash of lightning, wide and blank enough to reflect far too much light. ‘Freedom,’ he says.

‘ _Freedom?_ ’ Kyouichi says incredulously. ‘That makes no sense! You’re a slave to the whole student council. If you wanted to be free, couldn’t you just leave?’

Touga’s, ‘No,’ is almost lost beneath a roll of thunder. He continues once it’s passed. ‘Ohtori is a cage, but you can’t just release animals raised in a cage into the wild. They wouldn’t survive. Isn’t that why you came back after you were expelled? With nothing you couldn’t survive out there.’

‘Maybe,’ Kyouichi mumbles. Maybe he hadn’t tried hard enough. Touga had been here and Anthy had been here and he hadn’t had anything out there but also, without them, he hadn’t known who he was.

‘Cages are safe,’ Touga says. ‘Only the powerful can survive being free.’

‘That can’t be right,’ Kyouichi protests. ‘Lots of people are free. Ordinary people.’

Touga shifts into a crouch, looking, in the dark, like some fantastic animal sitting on its haunches. ‘Lots of people die.’

Kyouichi flinches back, caught suddenly by the image of pink hair dropping from a pale hand. Touga’s words have drawn him back to the first time he realised they were true. ‘She didn’t die,’ he says, frantically. ‘She wanted to die, but she didn’t.’

‘A Prince saved her. That doesn’t happen for everyone.’ Touga leans forward, hands resting on Kyouichi’s shoulders. They’re cold, like ice, and it takes a moment for him to realise that should be cause for concern rather than fear.

‘Touga, you’re freezing.’ He’s silenced by a mouth almost as cold, and then a hot tongue slipping between his lips. He manages to pull away to gasp, ‘Touga, what?’

‘Why act squeamish now? There’s no problem now you don’t own me, right?’

Touga, cold and dripping, feels more like an embodiment of the storm than a person and Kyouichi’s mind is tossed by memory. He wants to take a moment to think about this, but when lightning flashes again he clutches at Touga.

‘Shh, Kyouichi,’ Touga whispers, pulling them down into the space that was once filled by a coffin. ‘I’m here.’

* * *

The feeling that floods Nanami when she sees two figures walking towards the mansion under the same umbrella, arms around one another’s waists, is pure relief. That she now knows where Touga is, and that Kyouichi’s come back after all. Irritation follows a moment later, Kyouichi clearly forgot all about making Touga phone her. Both feelings drive her downstairs in a flurry to let them in.

‘Where were you? Why didn’t you call?’ she demands, chivvying them through the door.

Kyouichi actually looks sheepish. Touga opens his mouth as if to answer, but then turns aside as a coughing fit tears through him.

‘Idiot!’ Nanami snaps. ‘Why didn’t you take an umbrella in the first place? Of course you’d get sick. Miki says chronic pain depresses the immune system or something.’

‘Why were you talking to Miki about this?’ Touga asks.

‘Who else would I be talking to?’ Nanami folds her arms. ‘Go and change into something dry, for goodness’ sake.’

‘Come and help me change, Kyouichi,’ Touga says. The tone of his voice makes Nanami blush. She’s really not sure how she feels about him flirting with Kyouichi. It’s not _proper_ , their parents would be horrified, and Touga himself has said some things on the subject of boys with boys. On the other hand, she likes Kyouichi, and Touga’s less _weird_ with him than he is with girls. Even when he’s a jerk at least he doesn’t use the _exact same lines_ with Kyouichi and other people at the same time and if he did Kyouichi would punch him instead of pretending that’s normal. Nanami’s fairly sure it’s not normal.

She goes into the kitchen to make tea. Soup would probably be better, but she knows how to make tea and has no idea about soup. Not even whether they have canned soup or where the servants would put it if they do. She’s going to make Kyouichi teach her how to cook, she decides.

By the time the boys return with Touga in dry clothes it’s clear Touga’s paying for whatever he was up to. It’s also clear that he’s decided the best remedy against illness is using Kyouichi as a hot water bottle. Kyouichi accepts his lot with little protest and lets Touga curl up on him until it’s time to make dinner.

‘You know,’ Nanami whispers, leaning over the back of the chair Touga’s occupying. ‘I’m sure you could have convinced him to come back without making yourself sick.’ Then she follows Kyouichi into the kitchen and demands he let her help with dinner.

* * *

It hadn’t entirely been a ploy, no matter what Nanami thinks. The sudden reappearance of Utena as the power of Dios followed by the storm had drawn Touga back to the church where a girl had once been shown Eternity. If it _had_ been a ploy then taking an umbrella wouldn’t have jeopardised it. The bits of it intended to get to Kyouichi have worked wonders, though, he can’t deny he’s pleased with himself for that.

Right now he’s curled up under a blanket trying not to cough hard enough to dislodge Tora, who has emerged from whatever hiding place she spent the storm in and fallen asleep on his stomach.

‘This house is stupidly big,’ Kyouichi announces, walking into the room with a book he’s evidently fetched for Nanami.

‘That’s because you’ve spent your whole life in a dorm,’ she says.

‘No, it really is stupidly big. I feel like I should have brought my tent.’

Touga closes his eyes and imagines Kyouichi camping in the ballroom, a bonfire warding off the frigid wind that blows through rooms of grey ice.

* * *

Kyouichi wakes up in one of the mansion’s guest rooms to the sound of something crashing. Downstairs he discovers a broken vase and Touga’s stupid cat running around like a maniac, pawing frantically at the walls. At first he thinks he’s just half awake, seeing things in the dawn light, but no. She’s pawing at the shadows of butterflies, huge flocks of them flitting over every wall.

‘Cat,’ he says, then pauses and thinks. ‘Tora? Tora-chan?’

She stops to cock her head at him and he grabs her, carrying her through to the kitchen where she’ll be away from the broken china. The butterflies are there, too, shadows eerily cast by nothing at all. Tora is distracted from them, though, by her empty food bowl. Kyouichi gives in to the pitiful meowing and guesses at a reasonable amount of food.

Touga is awake and staring at the butterfly shadows on the walls of his room.

‘What’s with the butterflies?’ Kyouichi asks.

Touga blinks at him. ‘Those are real?’

‘I’ve been to the Ends of the World in a damned car and spent several hours as a monkey. Don’t ask me what’s real.’

Touga stares at the butterfly shadows for several wordless seconds. ‘It’s butterflies instead of roses this year,’ he says.

‘I’d noticed,’ says Kyouichi.

‘I thought it was the Chairman’s doing.’

‘It’s yours, isn’t it? But why butterflies?’

Touga smiles at him, teasingly. ‘It’s a secret.’

‘At least we don’t have to try to wear butterflies on our chests,’ says Kyouichi. ‘Do you need anything?’

‘Water,’ Touga says. The jug on the table by his bed is empty.

He’s asleep when Kyouichi comes back with a full jug. Kyouichi sits down on the bed next to him and watches the butterflies dance.

* * *

There are two girls trying to sell Touga a car. It’s a flashy red sports car, a lot like the Chairman’s, so he’s interested at first.

‘It looks good, doesn’t it?’ says one girl.

‘Of course, it’s second hand, so that makes it cheaper than it would be.’

‘There’s some damage.’

‘Quite a lot of damage, its first owner was a bit rough.’

‘It’s just been painted over, so although the car looks flashy it can break down unexpectedly.’

‘And none of the dials work, so you just have to guess when it’s out of gas or has a problem.’

Touga looks at the shiny red car and asks, ‘Who’d want to buy a car like that?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ says one girl. ‘People even fight over it.’

* * *

After lunch Nanami notices that a picture of herself and Touga on the mantlepiece shows a coffin where he should be. She runs upstairs in a panic to find him thrashing and moaning beneath the covers, in pain but decidedly alive.

Kyouichi looks up from the pile of books they’d got from the library about treating fevers and sees her standing in the doorway in tears. ‘What is it?’ he asks.

‘There was a coffin.’ Nanami sniffs and swipes her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘In a picture instead of my brother. I thought maybe he was…’

‘Oh.’ Kyouichi puts an arm around her shoulder awkwardly and she leans against him for a moment. ‘That’s not what coffins mean,’ he says. ‘We’re all in coffins.’

‘Kyouichi. Do you imagine that you’re being _reassuring?_ ’ Nanami asks with exaggerated patience.

‘It’s better than anybody being dead,’ says Kyouichi. A wail like a banshee rings through the house. ‘Damn that cat,’ he says. ‘I’d better go and sort her out.’

Nanami stands there for a moment and then starts to leaf through the books. There’s a copy of _The Snow Queen_ in there, for some reason, with an elaborately tooled cover. She flips it open and her eyes fall on a sentence marked in yellow highlighter.

_"You are a fine fellow for tramping about," said she to little Kay; "I should like to know, faith, if you deserve that one should run to the ends of the world for your sake?"_

Nanami shivers a little and flips back to a page near the beginning. Another highlighted sentence fragment catches her eye.

_”and at such times all the people said, "The boy is certainly very clever!" But it was the glass he had got in his eye; the glass that was sticking in his heart, which made him tease even little Gerda, whose whole soul was devoted to him.”_

She slams the book shut hard and shoves it to the bottom of the pile. Touga makes a strange gasping half-cry as she does and when she looks up the sheets are stained red with blood.

Her screaming brings Kyouichi running, but by the time he arrives the blood is nowhere to be seen. He believes her, though, when she swears it was there.

‘This is why I haven’t called the infirmary,’ he says.

Nanami nods. ‘I don’t know what you do for sick witches,’ she says. ‘Did Himemiya ever get sick? I remember her being very tired at one point…’ she frowns. ‘That was when my brother was…’ she sighs. ‘I didn’t know what to do for him then, either.’

* * *

Touga is sitting on a pink rose. Butterfly wings spread backwards from his shoulders, vibrating slightly as he pushes aside layers of petals to dip his hands into the nectar at the base. It’s sweet and sticky, tingling strangely with power, and he gulps it down before moving on to the next rose with an effortless flitter of his white wings. After a while the sweetness makes him feel sick, but he still needs it, this energy. He _deserves_ it. If he’s the one suffering, shouldn’t this power be his?

Suddenly the rose is cupped brown hands, holding him up to a face with deep green eyes. He freezes in terror, afraid she will touch his wings and brush the scales off, leaving him to die.

Instead she stands on tiptoe, very gently setting him on the lowest branch of an apple tree.

* * *

Touga wakes up and immediately rolls over and begins vomiting. Kyouichi catches him around the chest with one arm and brushes his hair back with the other hand, holding him until he stops heaving.

‘Bad dream?’ he asks.

Touga coughs a few times. ‘Not sure.’

‘About the bad part or the dream part?’

‘Both. I may have just tried to steal some of Anthy’s power.’ He laughs but he’s shaking. ‘If so I caught her in a merciful mood.’

It’s difficult for Kyouichi to think of sweet, self-effacing Anthy as a threat, even knowing the indifference that lay beneath delicate manners. Even knowing she’d turned him into a monkey deliberately for a joke. She’s at least as powerful as her brother, though, and far beyond anything she pretended to be for him. His grip on Touga turns into more of a hug. ‘That’s good.’ They sit there until Touga’s no longer shaking and then Kyouichi says, ‘Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.’

* * *

Touga’s fever breaks at nightfall. Butterfly shadows no longer flit across walls, hallways are no longer a different length every time Nanami walks down them. Tora stops screaming at things no one else can see, or at least reduces it to the amount expected of any cat. There are no more coffins in photographs. Even _The Snow Queen_ is nowhere to be found.

Nanami and Kyouichi share a well-earned cup of tea in the kitchen.

‘Thank you,’ Nanami says. ‘It feels like there’s never been anyone but us. When I was sick my brother took care of me, but when he was sick I always felt so helpless.’

Kyouichi shakes his head. ‘It’s my fault for not dragging him home when I found him soaked through. Somehow I always do what he wants, even when I know it’s stupid.’

‘Where was he?’ Nanami asks.

‘In a church,’ says Kyouichi. ‘Where once, during a storm, we found a girl in a coffin.’

‘A corpse?’ Nanami says with a gasp.

‘No, she was alive.’ Kyouichi shivers. ‘Her parents had died and she wanted to stay in her coffin forever now that they were gone. Now that she knew nothing was eternal. Touga and I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn’t come out.’

‘What happened?’

‘The next day she was at her parents’ funeral with this look in her eyes, like nothing I’d ever seen. Like she’d seen something eternal after all. I thought Touga had shown her something, that he’d gone back there later.’

Nanami laughs, high and shrill.

‘Like you wouldn’t have thought the same,’ he says.

‘That’s what’s so funny.’ She wipes her eyes. ‘Why did we worship him like that?’

‘He _is_ different,’ says Kyouichi. ‘Maybe he doesn’t know more than us, but he’s still like someone from another world.’

Nanami stares at him. ‘…You’re completely besotted, aren’t you?’

Kyouichi turns bright red and mumbles into his teacup, ‘Do you mind?’

‘No,’ Nanami says. ‘I’m… glad. At least if he doesn’t break your heart.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ Kyouichi mutters and then smiles up at her. ‘Thank you, Nanami.’

Nanami puts down her empty teacup. ‘Goodnight, Kyouichi,’ she says, then hesitates. ‘Do you know what became of her? The girl in the coffin?’

Kyouichi starts. ‘I forgot I hadn’t said. That was the previous Victor.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The _Snow Queen_ quotes are from this translation (http://www.online-literature.com/hans_christian_andersen/972/) although I edited one of the sentences a bit to get the phrase "ends of the world" in. The original sentence is "You are a fine fellow for tramping about," said she to little Kay; "I should like to know, faith, if you deserve that one should run from one end of the world to the other for your sake?" It doesn't change the meaning, and I'd seen the phrase "ends of the earth" used in a different translation.


	5. Chapter 5

‘Don’t you think it’s ridiculous for me to Duel Tsuwabuki?’ Nanami says, waving the letter she’s holding.

‘It shouldn’t take you very long to defeat him, certainly,’ says Touga, walking beside her.

Nanami shoves the letter back into her pocket. ‘He’s too young to be mixed up in something like this.’

‘Eleven’s not that young.’

‘Isn’t it? Even thirteen was too young.’ _For what you did to me, for being shoved against the side of a car and kissed like that. Did something like that happen to everyone on those car rides? Are we going to come to that again?_ ‘He’s a child!’

‘Children can be surprisingly ruthless.’ Touga’s looking ahead to the Chairman’s tower, where they’re headed for the student council meeting, and she wonders: Does he see her flinch? Does he know how ruthless she’d been, at seven?

Shiori is the student council president this year and Nanami’s just glad it’s not her responsibility to do the chick-and-egg speech. Somehow she could never memorise it correctly, the words had twisted on her tongue.

It’s a pretty stupid thing to recite in an elevator, anyway.

Nanami, Shiori and Tsuwabuki take their places around the table. Keiko’s sitting a little distance away at a school desk, dilligently working through a pile of paperwork with a scowl on her face. Touga stands behind Nanami, one hand on the back of her chair. Kyouichi isn’t attending because he ignores student council meetings with all his considerable powers of disdain.

‘It’s Mitsuru-kun’s turn to Duel next,’ Shiori says, giving him an encouraging smile.

He clicks his stopwatch nervously. ‘Yes, student council president!’ It’s the same earnest way he used to respond to Nanami’s orders.

‘Tsuwabuki,’ Nanami says. ‘Are you really planning to Duel me?’

‘I am a Duelist, Nanami-sempai.’

‘You’re too young,’ Nanami says. ‘I don’t know why you were offered something like this, but he should at least have waited —’

‘I’m not a child!’ He stands up, slamming his palms down on the desk. ‘The student council president says age isn’t the only measure of strength. I’m as much a Duelist as anyone.’

She catches his quick glance at Shiori for reassurance and turns on the girl at once, pointing a finger at her dramatically. ‘So, you’re the one doing Ends of the World’s dirty work this year? Getting everyone ready to Duel at the right time?’

‘Nanami-sama,’ Touga says. ‘You shouldn’t —’

She whips around fast enough that he has to step back from her pointing finger. ‘Shouldn’t what? Talk about it? Does that make _your_ job harder?’

Touga stares at her, blandly. ‘Yes.’

‘So we’re all just gathered here to agree on doing what we’re told? Kyouichi had the right idea!’ Nanami’s outflung arm sweeps her chair over and she storms off into the elevator.

* * *

Tsuwabuki clicks his stopwatch and writes something down. ‘I didn’t mean to upset her like that,’ he says uncertainly.

‘It’s not your fault, Mitsuru-kun,’ says Shiori, gently. ‘She’s always been high-strung.’

‘She thinks she’s special because she won a Duel that wasn’t even scheduled,’ says Keiko, still writing frantically.

‘It is a sign of favour,’ says Touga. ‘The previous Victor won a Duel that hadn’t been previously announced, too.’ Against him, which he’s not going to add. Utena had never received letters at all — an odd way to be favoured, to be given too little information. Yet it had marked her as special at least as surely as the extra information he’d been given.

‘I don’t really expect to beat her,’ says Tsuwabuki. ‘I just wish she’d take me seriously.’ Shiori puts a hand on his arm and Touga wonders whether this is entirely manipulation, or whether there’s fellow feeling there.

It doesn’t take long after that for the student council to run out of business to discuss. Shiori lingers afterwards and smiles at him prettily.

‘This seems the wrong way around,’ she says. ‘But may I escort you?’

‘I wouldn’t say no to such a charming young woman,’ says Touga. ‘Besides, it’s not that strange, between Duelist and Bride.’

‘You’re not _my_ Bride, though.’

‘True, but the current Victor seems to have forgotten me.’ Which stings, even if it’s for the perfectly reasonable reason that Nanami knows he has a mind of his own and doesn’t expect him to stay where he’s put.

Shiori smiles. ‘Then let’s go.’

Tora comes to meet them as soon as they step inside the greenhouse, running over with a welcoming trill for Touga.

‘Oh, you have a cat, how cute!’ Shiori says, immediately kneeling down and holding her hand out.

‘She’s my familiar,’ Touga says as Tora lets Shiori stroke her ears.

‘Is she really?’ Shiori asks.

He laughs. ‘No, she’s just a cat. She’s not even a very good judge of character.’

Shiori looks up at him with the air of a wounded princess. ‘Ah, that’s mean.’

‘Is it? You forget I know what your job is.’

She gives Tora’s ears one last rub and stands up. ‘So does everyone, thanks to your sister.’

‘Nanami’s never been very subtle.’ Touga plucks a dusky magenta rose and holds it out to her. ‘Here, as an apology.’

He doesn’t let go when she takes it, so that their fingers wind up twined together around the stem. Nanami will be calming down and coming to find him soon. Shiori looks up at him through her eyelashes and tries to blush.

‘Shyness is hardly becoming of a Duelist,’ he teases.

She meets his gaze more firmly. ‘You’re being very bold for a Bride,’ she says, smiling up at him.

‘I suppose we’re both learning,’ he says.

They lean in at the same time, lips meeting over the rose.

* * *

Nanami has stomped around the field, missed having Yuuko and Aiko to complain to, considered going to complain to Kyouichi, and decided he’d just be smug about his decision not to attend meetings. Now she’s wondering whether Touga will have returned to the greenhouse after the meeting and whether he’ll be any easier to talk to about this without the student council present. She’s not sure whether she feels guilty for arguing with him in a student council meeting or annoyed with him for arguing with her in one. Vaguely she feels the Bride and the Engaged should present a united front, but it’s the Bride that’s not meant to criticise.

Inside the greenhouse, in full view of the door, Touga has his arms around Shiori, a rose pressed against her back as they kiss.

Nanami slams the greenhouse door open, sending the cat skittering under a rosebush with a hiss like a boiling pot.

Touga and Shiori both turn to look at her, for a moment terribly alike, narrowed eyes and narrow smiles probing her for the pain they’ve caused. Then Shiori gasps and looks down, hand covering her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, Nanami-kun. I didn’t think you’d mind, as the Engaged, since you’re brother and sister.’

Nanami’s hands clench into fists, nails digging into her palm. The wrongness of it hits her like an acrid smell among the sweetness of the roses, making her wrinkle her nose. She’s engaged to her brother. It’s only within this stupid game, only because those are the roles they’ve been given, but if that’s true she should be saying, _Of course, Takatsuki-sempai, I don’t mind at all._ Instead she’s drawing herself up, feelings overwhelming her dignity as they always do, and saying, ‘Get out. I want to talk to my brother.’

‘Of course, Nanami-kun.’ Shiori leaves without fuss, shutting the greenhouse door gently behind her, and Nanami turns on Touga. ‘What are you doing?’

Touga smiles at her, eyes cold. It’s so familiar, this withdrawal of any warmth he has for her. So many times she’s driven herself frantic chasing down whatever she’s done to offend him, atoning so that he’ll once again look at her instead of through her. ‘Do you mind?’ he asks.

‘You didn’t do this when you were with Kyouichi.’

‘The circumstances are a little different. Kyouichi wants me, however ridiculous he was being about it. You’ve made it quite clear you don’t.’ He twirls the magenta rose in his hand and drops it beneath a bush of creamy yellow blossoms. ‘Of course, I’m still bound to follow your orders.’

‘You’re really going to make me order you to stop going with girls?’

‘I’m not making you do anything, Nanami-sama.’

Nanami looks away, then forces herself to meet his eyes again. ‘You’re cheating on Kyouichi, too.’

‘Kyouichi and I don’t have anything that formal.’

‘Of course you don’t. He wouldn’t dare ask and you don’t care about him at all.’

This time it’s Touga who looks away. ‘Kyouichi is my oldest and dearest friend.’

‘He’s your only friend,’ Nanami snaps. ‘Which isn’t surprising, the way you treat people.’

She slams out of the greenhouse as precipitously as she slammed into it and runs. It seems to be her day for leaving things abruptly.

The music room is somewhere she hopes to find Miki. It’s empty, but she’s run as far as she can, so she folds her arms on the piano, ignoring the blaring discord as they settle, and puts her head down to cry.

Someone slips onto the piano stool beside her and she sniffles. ‘Miki,’ she says.

‘It’s not,’ says Kozue.

Nanami jerks her head up and tries to get off the stool so quickly that she ends up on the floor. Kozue laughs, unkind but not probing for insecurities, just amused at someone else’s expense. She pulls off her tie and uses it to wipe Nanami’s tears off the keyboard in a rumble of sound while Nanami stands up.

‘Bad day?’ Kozue asks.

‘Yes,’ says Nanami. ‘My brother…’

‘Did you catch him making out with someone?’ Kozue asks.

‘I shouldn’t care,’ says Nanami. ‘But he knows I care. I don’t know what he _wants_.’

‘Oh, that’s easy,’ says Kozue, smiling in a way that makes Nanami feel the same wariness she feels around animals. ‘Attention.’

‘How would you know?’

‘We fucked a few times. We’re too alike, so it didn’t happen often.’

Nanami blushes at the word ‘fucked’ and hates herself for it. Still the innocent little sister, growing up protected in her ivory tower. ‘Of course, you’ve pulled the same things on Miki,’ she says, acidly.

‘I’m being nicer to him this year,’ says Kozue, sitting at the piano and idly playing a few notes of an arpeggio.

‘Playing the piano for him?’

‘I like the piano.’ Kozue’s arpeggio is hesitant and all out of time, but she hits the right notes. ‘I’m just not very good at it. I definitely can’t play it the way he wants me to. But he knows that now.’

 _I just want him to love me,_ Nanami thinks, and shies away from the idea that that might be as impossible for Touga as playing _The Sunlit Garden_ is for Kozue.

* * *

Kyouichi’s taken over making dinner since he moved in with Touga and Nanami. He’s not actually arrogant enough to believe he’s better at cooking than whatever professional cook the Kiryuus normally employ, but there’s something that makes him uneasy about the unseen servants at the mansion. Besides, Touga hasn’t asked him to stop and Nanami’s been quite insistent on learning from him, so he can’t be doing too badly. Which means it probably isn’t the dinner that’s causing the subdued air at the table tonight.

‘What’s wrong with you two?’ he asks.

Touga looks at him with a distracted air. ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘Yes. You’re ignoring Nanami and she’s simmering. What did I miss?’

‘Nothing more than you usually miss,’ Touga says.

‘It’s nothing,’ says Nanami, folding her arms. ‘The student council meeting was just pointless. Meeting to declare we’re going to do as we’re told…’

‘That’s why I didn’t go,’ says Kyouichi.

Nanami glares at him. ‘Yes. I know.’

‘Nanami-sama stormed out halfway through,’ says Touga.

‘Tsuwabuki’s being stubborn and Takatsuki’s encouraging him,’ Nanami says. ‘Even if I defeat him, it won’t get him out of this, he’ll just be back in the next round like last time.’

Touga stands up and says, ‘I’ve had enough,’ before heading out into the garden.

Kyouichi meets Nanami’s eyes. ‘I’ll go after him,’ he says.

Touga hasn’t gone far, he’s just sitting on one of the chairs by the house. Kyouichi takes one across from him.

‘You’re jealous,’ Kyouichi says, watching Touga’s eyes as they fail to meet his. ‘Nanami’s not meant to care about anyone but you, is that it?’

‘It’s not.’

‘Then why does it matter if Nanami wants to get someone she cares about out of the game?’

Touga’s eyes meet his like a clash of blades. ‘Because I need the Duels to continue to the end. Have you forgotten?’

‘Surely one person less wouldn’t matter that much?’ says Kyouichi uncertainly.

‘Nanami announced to the student council that Shiori and I are manipulating them on the Chairman’s behalf.’

It’s Kyouichi’s turn to look away. ‘If Tsuwabuki wasn’t convinced it can’t have done any harm. Keiko’s done with for now and we all knew by the second round.’

‘The second round,’ Touga echoes. ‘Do you feel like we’re forgetting one?’

‘Not unless it happened while I was expelled.’

Touga shrugs. ‘Perhaps I should ask Miki.’

* * *

Nanami stops on the way to school when Tsuwabuki calls for her. She wants to talk to him, try to talk him out of this, but he stops in front of her with a creamy yellow rose already in his hand. He holds it out to her like a book or a bento, like she’d asked him for it, and she’s smacked it out of his hand before her mind catches up.

‘Not yet,’ she says, through gritted teeth. Not before she’s had a chance to try averting it. The other Duels had never happened this fast, always there had been a little time between the letter and the Duel as personal reasons caught up with the order. It’s as if Tsuwabuki has just been waiting to fight her.

He draws himself up, frowning and offended. ‘This isn’t just something you can brush off, Nanami-sempai. I’m as much a Duelist as you are.’

‘Tsuwabuki.’ Nanami rests a hand against the side of his face. ‘Last year, things happened to us that we wouldn’t have wanted. I thought —’ Her breath catches. ‘At the time I thought I’d rather die than go through it again. I don’t want you to go through it at all.’

He gazes up at her, no longer frowning. ‘Then shouldn’t you drop out? If you tell me what you’re fighting for I’ll fight for it. I’ll protect you, Nanami-sempai.’

Nanami closes her eyes before that earnest gaze, those ruthlessly pure intentions. ‘That’s not what I want.’

Suddenly her hand is no longer resting on his face but clasped in both of his hands. The feeling of disorientation is familiar, she steps backwards as if she’s expecting an attack. ‘I’ll protect you,’ he repeats. ‘We’ll Duel tonight and I’ll do my best to defeat you.’ He drops her hand and runs towards the school, ignoring her shouting after him.

Nanami pulls out a handkerchief and wipes her eyes. ‘Stupid,’ she says.

* * *

There’s a basket of easter eggs resting on one of the crenellations around the viewing platform. Of the five eggs inside it, one is half unwrapped and has a bite taken out of it. Miki and Juri sit one on each side of the basket, perched on their crenellations, Kyouichi stands further into the corner where he’s mostly in shadow.

‘Miki,’ he says. ‘How many rounds of Duels did we fight last year?’

‘Two, wasn’t it?’ says Miki.

‘Touga thinks we’re forgetting one and he remembers more weird stuff than I do,’ says Kyouichi.

‘There were those weeks in the summer when nothing seemed to happen,’ says Juri, her hand going to her chest and then falling.

‘I can’t find any minutes from that time,’ Miki says quietly. ‘Even though I thought I remembered taking them.’

Kyouichi fidgets with his opera glasses, then forces the words out. ‘How did I return to the school?’

‘Someone… interceded for you?’ Miki says, tentatively.

‘It wasn’t our decision, I’m certain,’ Juri adds, making Kyouichi scowl at her.

Butterflies go up from the arena, signalling the start of another Duel.

* * *

The roses are both yellow this time. Creamy for Nanami, darker gold for Mitsuru. Mitsuru holds still carefully as his is placed, like a child waiting for an adult to tie his neck tie before a party. Nanami looks away as Touga places hers, still uncomfortable at his touch but no longer startled by it. He kneels to her as he did to Keiko and waits for her hand at his breast.

‘Power of Dios, placed within me,’ he says. ‘Serve your purpose. Come forth!’

She can’t look at him as she pulls it, gentle but fumbling, trying not to blush for what it betrays of what she _knows_ Bride and Victor are. Touga leans on her, as much to force himself on her attention as for balance.

‘Grant me the power to bring the world revolution,’ Nanami says, like a prayer. There are tears clogging her throat and it sounds less triumphant declaration than plea.

Mitsuru looks concerned. ‘Nanami-sempai, please don’t cry.’

She flings herself forward in one movement, forcing him to dodge, then turning and driving him back against the wall. ‘Don’t mistake it for weakness,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t need protecting.’

His own sword, a curved one like Nanami’s from last year, comes up to parry. ‘I _want_ to protect you, Nanami-sempai.’

‘I know. I even wanted you to, once. But I have to be stronger now.’

He takes advantage of her unwillingness to risk hurting him by ducking under the blade and slicing up at her rose. Nanami blocks it with her arm and as blood wells through her white uniform top he falters, eyes full of tears. Nanami drops the sword and reaches out to pull away his rose with her bare hand, dropping it to the arena floor still whole.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says as he wipes his eyes on his sleeve, suddenly looking every bit the child Nanami had called him.

Nanami steps forward and puts her arms around him, stroking his hair maternally. Touga stands up and walks away from them, leaving his Victor to comfort her rival. _You’re jealous_. Yes, maybe. Kyouichi knows that sort of thing, of course he’d notice. ‘Eleven’s not that young,’ Touga whispers to himself. Old enough for Mitsuru to understand the bargain he’s made and the price he’ll pay for it.

* * *

Nanami and Touga are both waiting for Kyouichi at the rose gate. Touga is looking away, a beautifully disdainful statue, and Nanami is looking worn down in a way that reminds him of her curled up almost under the table during the Duel called Revolution. ‘It wasn’t that bad, was it?’ Kyouichi asks, dismayed.

Nanami smiles tiredly. ‘I won, anyway.’

‘I saw. Well done.’ He pats her shoulder, and pulls away when she winces, noticing the blood on her sleeve. ‘You’d better soak that when we get home or you’ll never get the stain out,’ he adds.

‘You’re so practical,’ Nanami says.

‘I asked Miki if he remembered another round of Duels,’ he says, when the silence seems likely to go on and on and only get tenser. ‘He doesn’t, but he doesn’t have any minutes from those weeks in summer when I was expelled, either.’

‘Another round of Duels?’ says Nanami. ‘That’s… I thought I remembered something, but it’s gone. It was about Tsuwabuki.’

‘Keiko, for me,’ Touga says, still not looking at either of them. ‘She’d pulled my sword before, I think.’

‘Wait, really?’ Nanami swings around to look up at him. ‘She wasn’t even a Duelist, how dare she!’

‘Maybe she was,’ Touga says, finally looking at the person he’s talking to.

‘I don’t remember how I returned to the school,’ Kyouichi says. ‘Someone got me back in, but it wasn’t you. Juri and Miki didn’t want me back.’

‘So, if it was someone else, what did they make you give them for the favour?’ Touga asks.

‘Nothing much,’ says Kyouichi, automatically. ‘It’s not even like it was that well made, just a hair clip.’

They’re both looking at him, puzzled, but Touga’s putting something together behind his eyes. ‘Why did you make a hair clip?’ he asks.

‘I… I was staying with someone. A middle-school student.’ Kyouichi blushes, because that’s just embarrassing, and also because pretending he didn’t know about her feelings for him doesn’t mean he wasn’t taking advantage. ‘She was nice.’ He’d felt like a real jerk when she’d caught him packing and then she’d… ‘Something happened. She’s not a Duelist this year, though.’

‘You should talk to her,’ says Touga. ‘Besides, you still owe her a hairclip.’

Kyouichi looks down. ‘I guess I do.’

* * *

Nanami sits on her bed in her nightdress and pages through photo albums that don’t bring her the comfort they used to. Keiko says, ‘You’re not brother and sister.’ Shiori says, ‘You are brother and sister.’ Both mean, don’t get so close to him. Give him to us.

They’re not wrong. She rocks forward, drawing her knees up against her stomach. They’re not wrong.

She answers a knock at her door to find Touga standing outside. His gaze flits past her into the room. ‘Looking at photos?’ he says, disapprovingly.

‘You said once that you’d never cared about me, really,’ she says. ‘Is that why you don’t like the photo albums? Because you’re just acting in all of the pictures?’

His eyes go wide, almost as if she’s struck him. ‘I knew you were listening when I said that. Go to bed.’

He shuts the door before she can ask whether that means he was lying.


	6. Chapter 6

Touga is sitting in a chair by the kitchen leafing through car magazines. Nanami says, ‘You aren’t really going to get a car the moment you turn eighteen are you? You haven’t been taking lessons.’

He looks up from the magazine regretfully. ‘No, I’m not. I doubt the Chairman would approve.’

Nanami finds herself crossing the room to stand behind his chair and wind her arms around his neck. Like this she can see the sports cars he was looking at, and still her acid dislike of the idea of Touga with a car has been replaced by anger that he has to give up something he wants rather than risk retaliation from that man. ‘What if I gave you permission?’ she says.

He looks up at her, smiling at the idea. ‘I don’t know. I thought you wouldn’t like me to have one either.’

Nanami’s arms tighten, she can feel his heartbeat under her clasped hands. ‘You do remember then.’

‘I wouldn’t forget that, Nanami.’ He’s looking down now, legs slightly drawn up so that he’s almost curled in the chair. Nanami’s used to wanting to protect him, but right now she almost feels like the older one.

‘Why did you do it?’ she asks.

‘You had to Duel again. If it hadn’t been me it would have been _him_. If you’d liked it you could have been my Bride in the next round and we were so close to being them. There’s a lot of power in that. Maybe we could have won.’

‘You wanted me to be the _Rose Bride_ ,’ Nanami spits.

Touga twists, grabbing her wrist as she tries to pull away, suddenly looking at her with a desperation she hasn’t seen before. ‘I didn’t know it was like this!’

‘You knew what else it meant!’

He lets go of her and folds into himself. ‘I’m sorry. It didn’t work, anyway. You’re not… someone who would accept that.’

Nanami sighs and puts her arms back around him. ‘I think that’s the first time you’ve apologised to me and actually meant it.’ She hates herself a little that that’s all it takes for her to, if not forgive him, at least sympathise. And yet. She’s not, what? Like him?

‘Probably,’ he says, quietly.

Nanami shakes her head. ‘I’ll buy you a car,’ she says. ‘Then it’s not your fault if he doesn’t like it. But you have to promise not to do anything weird in it.’

The smirk spreading across his face lets Nanami guess what he’s going to say before he says, ‘But Kyouichi would be disappointed.’

‘Ugh. Fine. You two can do what you want. _Just_ him though.’

His quiet laughter thrums through both of them. ‘Okay. I promise.’

* * *

‘Are we really playing for matchsticks?’ Touga asks, dropping a deck of cards on the table. ‘How quaint.’

‘I’m not playing for money against _you_ ,’ Kyouichi says explosively.

‘Like you don’t have money to spare,’ Touga says.

‘I have an _allowance_ ,’ Kyouichi says. ‘Unlike some people, who buy champagne for parties where no one’s old enough to drink.’

‘You have to have champagne at a party,’ says Nanami.

Touga goes to shuffle the cards and Nanami takes them from him. ‘I’m not a magician, Nanami,’ he says. ‘You’ll have to come to my birthday party this time, Kyouichi, since you live here.’

‘No, I won’t,’ says Kyouichi. ‘All anyone does at your parties is look pretty and eat things I don’t know the name of.’

‘And dance,’ says Touga.

‘I don’t dance,’ snaps Kyouichi. Nanami hands him the shuffled cards to cut, which he does without looking.

‘I’ll dance with you,’ Touga says.

Kyouichi huffs. ‘No, you won’t.’

‘I certainly won’t if you’re not there.’

Kyouichi’s eyes are full of a mixture of anxiety and hope, embarrassment at the thought of dancing with another boy in front of everyone and pleasure to think Touga really might show him off like that.

‘I can see why you didn’t want to play for money,’ Touga says. ‘You have no poker face at all.’

* * *

There has been no letter, but the next Duel looms over Kyouichi like a gathering storm. Even when they win, the Duels seem to take something from them. When Nanami wins, he reminds himself. He’s not the one fighting. How did the previous Victor cope? With confidence in herself and pleasure in the role of Prince, he thinks. Neither of which he or Nanami have much of. The Victor hadn’t been ground down by it until the end, they’re still suffering from last year.

Carving takes his mind off things. He’s already made a present for Touga. It’s a little embarrassing to think of placing something handmade before that cool gaze, but what could money buy that Touga couldn’t already have if he wanted it? Now he’s putting the last coat of varnish on Wakaba’s hairclip. He’d sent her a gift at the time, but she’d been so happy when he offered her the hairclip and he owes her an apology for pulling it away.

He finds her the next day at the tennis courts, laughing with friends after she’s won a match, one girl hugging her ecstatically, loudly proclaiming her greatness. So he hesitates, because she’s happy now and perhaps doesn’t need a reminder of a time she hadn’t been.

‘Hey, Saionji-sempai,’ calls the ecstatic girl. ‘What are you doing there?’

He’s flustered and responds by looking over her head, hiding awkwardness with haughty dignity. ‘I came to give something to Wakaba.’

‘Ooh, a love letter?’

‘No!’ The harshness of his own response makes him wince and he looks quickly at Wakaba, but she looks confused more than disappointed. ‘It’s… a debt.’

He pulls out the tissue-wrapped hairclip from his pocket and holds it out. Wakaba takes it, confusion melting into a sort of wistfulness as she unwraps it, and he’s sorry to have put a cloud over her sunny cheer. ‘Thank you,’ she says.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it after all this time.’

‘It’s fine, it’s fine,’ she smiles at him, then suddenly grabs his arm. ‘You girls go ahead, I want to talk to Saionji-sempai.’

Her friends move off in a cloud of cheerful promises to meet later and threats if she abandons them for a boy.

‘You’re on the student council again this year,’ she says, suddenly serious.

‘Yes,’ Kyouichi says, resignedly. He wonders whether it would be strange to say he didn’t want to be, but he feels like maybe she can tell.

‘I got a letter asking me to be on it, you know,’ she says.

He stares at her. ‘I didn’t know. You didn’t want to?’ He remembers her desire to stand out, to be noticed. They’d been alike in that way, eclipsed by best friends who just bent the world around them.

‘Last year I would have wanted it more than anything, but it was a weird letter. It sort of felt like I was being asked to join a cult, and that’s just too much for any girl.’ She bites her lip. ‘Weird stuff went on with the student council last year, too. They — you — were always bothering Utena.’

‘You remember her? The Victor?’ He grabs her shoulders, holding her back so he can see her face.

‘I didn’t for a while, and then it came back to me. No one else seemed to, but I thought maybe she just hadn’t been close to any of them, even if they admired her. What — what’s happened?’ She looks scared now and he forces himself to let go, even though it’s not him she’s scared of.

‘You don’t have to be involved. You were smart enough not to join the student council, do you really want to know?’

‘She was my best friend, Saionji-sempai. And now she’s gone. I want to know.’

He nods. ‘I’ll tell you.’

By the time he’s done they’re sitting on the grass side by side, Wakaba pale and huge-eyed.

‘Sorry it’s so awful,’ he says.

‘I’m glad you told me,’ Wakaba says. ‘Is Utena really trapped in a magic castle?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s not really her. Everything else was an illusion.’ He shivers. ‘Most things. It gets hard to tell.’

‘I’m sorry you’re being forced to go through it again,’ she says. ‘The student council president — Touga-sempai — always was terrible. Although I suppose I shouldn’t say that if he’s hurt.’

‘No, it’s true.’ He sighs. ‘He did want to help the Victor by the end. We both did.’

‘You might have been more use to her if you’d just told her everything like you’re telling me,’ Wakaba says.

Kyouichi nods. He can’t remember why that seemed so impossible, now.

‘Not that there’s anything I can do,’ says Wakaba, with a sigh. ‘Unless I Duel after all.’ She picks up her racket and waves it. ‘En Garde! I could be really cool.’

‘Don’t,’ says Kyouichi. ‘If you want to help, talk to Miki. He’s trying to figure this out.’

‘Mickey-kun is? Of course, he’s so smart.’ She jumps up and smiles at him. ‘I’ll do my best!’

He wants to tell her to stay out of it, stay away. Utena’s already gone, there’s no one here that Wakaba needs to save. In the face of her cheerful determination he can’t bring himself to. Maybe if she’d accepted the letter she’d be the Champion this year, throwing herself into everything with innocent altruism. She runs off across the field, racket swinging from her hand.

* * *

‘What are _you_ doing here?’ Nanami asks.

Wakaba looks up from where she’s perched on the library table Miki’s studying at. ‘Helping Mickey-kun. What are _you _doing here?’__

‘I came to give Miki an invitation.’ She drops the envelope onto the table beside him as she says it.

‘Oh, thank you.’ Miki opens it. ‘A birthday party?’

‘Why not? It’s allowed.’ She leans over the table to see the notebook Miki’s writing in. It reads:

Tsuwabuki to Nanami.  
Wakaba to Saionji.  
Keiko to Touga. _Did they ever even talk? Why her?_  
Takatsuki to Juri? _She came back at the right time._  
Kozue to me???

‘Obviously Kozue,’ says Nanami. ‘Who else?’

‘It doesn’t really matter since she’s not on the student council,’ says Miki, fidgetting with his pencil. ‘But if Takatsuki-san fought with Juri’s sword, we don’t have any new Duelists this year.’

‘So he’s getting less powerful,’ says Wakaba, jumping up from the desk and flinging her arms out. ‘He can’t bring new people in. Ha!’

‘He’s still powerful enough to hurt the ones he has got,’ Nanami snaps.

‘But it could be a hopeful sign, Nanami-san?’ Miki says, placatingly.

‘Maybe.’ Nanami scowls and doesn’t say, _maybe it means he’ll never let go of those of us he still has._ She doesn’t want to make the thought too real.

* * *

Touga throws his head back against the white couch and looks up at Akio through eyes almost closed. Like this the man is blurred, a presence more than a person, seeming to take up the whole world. In some ways it’s the most accurate view of him Touga will ever have. Above him stars rotate across the ceiling starburst pains from the swords seeming to mingle with them until Touga doesn’t know whether he’s seeing or feeling.

‘You’ll be eighteen soon,’ Akio says, musingly.

‘Will you be disappointed when this is legal?’ Touga asks, voice jerky with both pain and pleasure. Like this he can give in to both, stop fighting and float in a sea of agony while Akio holds him at the surface. Akio knows the nature of the swords. Akio knows everything.

Akio chuckles. ‘You know me so well, Rose Bride.’

Afterwards, when Touga has put his school uniform back on, Akio hands him two letters sealed with the Rose Crest. ‘Deliver these for me,’ he says.

‘Another Duel? I was hoping to at least celebrate my birthday in peace,’ says Touga, lightly.

‘Like last year?’

‘It’s a little different now I’m the prize.’ He’d spent his last birthday helping Anthy torment Nanami into Dueling. Perhaps he deserves this.

‘The Duel itself won’t be on your birthday.’

Touga nods. It hadn’t been last year, either.

* * *

The day of Touga’s birthday Kyouichi hangs around watching Nanami supervise the decorating and criticises her choices until she throws a clipboard at him. ‘I know you hate parties!’ she shouts at him. ‘If you can’t be useful at least go away.’

Kyouichi hands her the clipboard back and does as she suggests. At first he walks around the garden, restless with nerves, then he decides he might as well give himself one less reason for anxiety and stops by the guest room to pick up a parcel before going to Touga’s room.

Touga’s room is covered in clothes, Touga himself standing in the middle of them still in his school uniform and giving the entire chaotic mess the degree of consideration people normally give works of art. ‘Ah, Kyouichi,’ he says. ‘I was just picking something to wear.’

‘So I see.’ Kyouichi steps coltishly over the piles of clothes, lifting his legs high and trying to watch where he puts them. ‘Here. I brought you this.’

It’s a white box with a red ribbon tied around it, and Touga smiles vaguely at him but makes no move to take it. ‘Shouldn’t you be giving that to me tonight?’

‘No. Just open it now. Please.’ _If you laugh at it I’d rather you didn’t do it in front of everyone, and I’d rather not give them the chance to laugh either._

He’s afraid for a moment Touga will refuse just because he can see how nervous Kyouichi is, but instead he holds out a hand for it. Kyouichi looks away as Touga unwraps it, knowing already that it’s foolish, that Touga doesn’t share the sentimental streak he’s given into in making it. When Touga doesn’t say anything though, he peeks.

Touga is holding a little statuette in the palm of his hand. It’s a carving of Tora, washing herself so that she’s in a pose like a lucky charm of a beckoning cat. Leaning against her front legs, where a coin usually would be on a beckoning cat, is a key carved with a Rose Crest, her tail just wrapping slightly over it. Touga is looking at it with an expression that Kyouichi can’t read anything from except softness.

‘Do you like it?’ Kyouichi asks, words rough with nerves.

‘Mm.’ Touga turns it around in his hand and then puts it down beside his bed. ‘It’s very sweet.’

‘You don’t, then.’

‘You surprised me. I thought I’d leached the sweetness out of you a long time ago.’ Touga wraps his arms around Kyouichi and pulls him back against his chest. ‘That doesn’t mean I don’t like it.’ He bends to whisper the last words in Kyouichi’s ear, as if someone might be listening in. ‘Or that I don’t thank you for wishing me freedom.’

* * *

If Touga’s reputation around school is changing, with rumours about his relationship with Kyouichi, about his strange relationship with Keiko from which he’d apparently been rescued by his little sister, about how he’s never available to his flock of admirers anymore, then it hasn’t affected the people Nanami invited to his birthday party much. He spends the party charming girls who look at him with warm adoration and feels more solid for seeing himself reflected as a prince in their eyes, like a sketch being filled with paint.

Shiori catches his attention, entering in her white uniform. There’s a bunch of pink roses in her arms, tied with an aqua blue bow. It’s not the fact that she’s imitating Utena’s present that makes him tense like a cat sensing a storm. It’s the fact that she wasn’t at the school this time last year. She’s not only out to manipulate him, she’s being helped.

‘How lovely,’ he says, taking them from her. ‘Did the Chairman tell you to deliver these?’

‘I may have taken his advice,’ she smiles up at him. There’s no adoration there, but she’d fallen for Ruka once. Her neediness is a weakness and he needs an advantage.

He plucks one of the thornless roses from the bunch and tucks it into her hair. ‘As beautiful as their bearer.’ She’s more pleased with the murmurs from the crowd than with his attention in itself, but he can work with that. ‘Dance with me?’

Her smile widens. ‘Of course.’

It’s when he’s fetching her refreshments a few dances later that Nanami catches his arm. ‘What are you and Shiori plotting together?’ she hisses, cheeks flushed pink with anger.

‘Together?’ Touga asks.

‘Please. She comes in with roses and suddenly she’s Cinderella and you can’t take your eyes off her.’

‘We’re not on the same side.’ Touga has no idea what she’s up to either, although he doesn’t like to admit that. ‘I’m just… where’s Kyouichi?’

‘Not here,’ Nanami says. ‘ _Idiot._ He went home.’

‘Until the party’s over?’

Nanami glares at him and doesn’t answer.

* * *

Kyouichi’s dorm feels dark and unlived in. He thought it would be a relief to get some peace, but it just feels lonely. The rap on his door comes at past midnight, so he knows it’s going to be Touga, who else would it be?

‘The party’s over,’ he says. ‘You can come back now.’

‘I’ll stay here tonight,’ Kyouichi answers, hackles up.

Touga makes some elegant motion of his hand, almost lost in the darkness of the hall. ‘You know Shiori doesn’t matter to me. She’s a rival Duelist, I want to know what she’s got up her sleeve so she can’t use it against Nanami, that’s all.’

Kyouichi narrows his eyes. ‘Did you ask her if the Chairman’s fucked her yet.’

‘I wouldn’t be so crude,’ Touga replies.

‘It’s what you want to know, isn’t it? She means nothing to you, but if she’s doing what you did last year then she’s got _his_ attention.’

‘And that’s what bothers you. You don’t care what I do with her.’

 _I care when you forget about me to chase after a rival for the Chairman._ He doesn’t dare say it. What would happen if he did? ‘You’re never going to be anything to him but useful,’ he spits, instead.

‘I know that. But he’s useful to me too.’

‘Do you really think so?’ He’s not expecting an answer and he doesn’t get one. They look at one another, shadows that barely exist in the darkness, and then Touga softly shuts the door.

* * *

Nanami puts the roses in a vase with water and stares at them until she can’t bear it any more. A moment later they’re on the floor, scattered petals and glass shards intermingled.

What is it that they’re missing, her, Kyouichi and Touga? Why do things break so easily?

When she goes back into the empty ballroom there’s a yellow rose on top of Touga’s pile of presents and a note telling her to come to the arena after school tomorrow.

* * *

Touga coils restlessly beneath his covers. It’s not the dark he’s afraid of, it’s the emptiness, he doesn’t like to be alone with his thoughts. His phone is on the bedside table, holding out the promise of company and distraction, but he is the Rose Bride. Even if he’s not very good at it, he can’t behave the way he used to, not when he’s meant to belong to one person at a time. One person and the Chairman.

Instead he pulls Kyouichi’s silly cat charm closer. It was good judgement on Kyouichi’s part to make him open it here in his bedroom; in front of people he would almost have had to laugh at it. Part of him still wants to. Some other part of him wants to believe, like a child hoping a night light will ward off monsters, that there’s enough magic in Ohtori for something made with nothing but care and good intentions to have a little.

He closes his eyes and tries to sleep.

* * *

Kyouichi thinks he’s the first one at the viewing point for once, until he notices Wakaba’s there. Surprisingly, she’s sweeping the platform.

‘Watch your step, there’s broken glass everywhere,’ she says. ‘No matter now much sweeping I do —’ she points to the pile of glass by the wall of the tower ‘— there always seems to be more.’

Kyouichi makes his way over to the low wall at the edge, toeing glass out of his way as he does. ‘I’m sorry about last year,’ he says. ‘You were kind and I just stopped paying attention to you when it suited me.’

She puts the broom down and comes over to where he’s standing, jumping up easily onto one of the crenellations so that they’re nearly eye to eye. ‘I’m over it,’ she says. ‘Really. But are _you_ okay?’

‘Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing,’ he tells her.

‘That’s okay, I never know what I’m doing.’ She swings herself around wildly as she gestures and he grabs the back of her blouse, fearing she’s about to pitch herself over the edge. ‘See?’ she says, laughing.

‘I see you shouldn’t be trusted in high places,’ he says.

* * *

‘I am so sick of those steps,’ Nanami says. ‘Can’t I ride the gondola with you?’

‘No.’ Touga’s tone doesn’t leave room for argument, but she feels like arguing.

‘Why not? Rose Bride magic?’

‘For one thing, I have to get undressed.’

Nanami looks away, face burning, and knows he’s laughing at her. The Victor had ridden in the gondola for the whole of the second — third — set of Duels. Had Anthy been undressing in front of her that whole time? Will Nanami have the option of not going in the gondola?

‘Talking of magic clothes, you promised me frills,’ she says, a little inanely. ‘Or maybe you could give me a cape, like your one, that’s pretty cool.’

‘I’m not doing that.’

‘Huh?’ She wasn’t really paying attention to her own rambling, so she’s surprised by how serious Touga sounds.

‘Butterflies don’t suit you.’

‘Okay, I don’t really mind anyway.’

‘I can try giving you frills.’

‘Okay. But first, I have to climb these stairs. Ugh.’

Nanami actually stops halfway up the stairs to rub her hands over her face. She’s not out of breath, but she feels off. There’s too much in her head and heart. Memories of apples and kittens, of a car and a kiss, of a magenta rose against the white of Shiori’s uniform jacket, and a pink one against the purple of her hair. How is she to find the thread that would unravel them back to a time when she’d known her brother, if there ever had been such a time? How is she to fight for someone she barely knows?

Touga puts his hands together when he sees her and pulls them apart in a dramatic gesture that leaves a layer of frills cascading from below her jacket. Pink, like the details on her jacket, like the Victor’s hair, and for a moment she feels oddly cheered. It fades when Shiori steals a kiss from Touga while he places her rose and he lets her, eyes on Nanami as he does. It feels like he’s daring her to stop him. Either accept he’ll do what he wants, or claim him completely.

She tugs sharply on the sword of Dios, wanting to get this over with under Shiori’s judging gaze. Touga groans and shudders, bites back on it a moment later and goes as blank as ever Anthy did. Nanami touches his shoulder with nervous fingers. ‘Sorry,’ she whispers, and he gives her a quick smile.

Shiori makes the first move and she’s clearly been training hard. She lacks Juri’s strength, but she’s precise, and sneaky too. Nanami finds herself watching Shiori’s off hand in case a dagger suddenly appears in it. Instead, her wariness only serves to distract her further. She’s being driven back before she knows it.

The light comes as a relief as much as it unnerves her. It surrounds her, she feels like she’s floating, she sees the Victor descending to her with a smile, ready to help. It’s like being hugged at first, but then it’s like someone else is in her body with her, guiding her forward into a lunge.

‘So, you really are his Prince,’ Shiori says, voice insinuating something that makes Nanami flinch back, as if completing the stroke would mean admitting to it.

Shiori’s sword flashes out and shears her rose.

* * *

‘Shiori-sama. I am the Rose Bride. From today, I am your flower.’

Words spoken, he leaves Nanami kneeling in the arena, trying not to cry, and Shiori smiling at her victory and retreats to the gondola. He feels like such a fool, letting Shiori play him like that. Of course, she’d had help, but that only makes it worse. He’d been _predictable_ , unable to resist tormenting Nanami with her ownership of him, unable to see that driving a wedge between them was the most obvious way to win him of all.

Well. He’d better hope either Nanami or Kyouichi still wants him back.


	7. Chapter 7

Kyouichi goes home with Nanami after the Duel. She doesn’t ask him to but she’s crying as she walks and he doesn’t want to imagine her alone in her oversized mansion. He makes her tea when they get home, and puts a tentative arm around her.

‘It’s not your fault,’ he says.

She shakes her head. ‘I don’t… I think part of me wanted to lose.’

‘I don’t blame you.’

‘It’s my brother’s fault! Shiori was saying things, but he was… I was trying so hard to forget I had to be _engaged_ to him to help him and he just never forgot it. Never let either of us forget it.’ She sniffles and looks at him pleadingly. ‘Kyouichi, I don’t want to be the one to Duel this time.’

‘You’ve done a lot better at Dueling than me,’ he says, hesitantly. She’s the one with the previous Victor’s approval. ‘I thought you’d continue.’

She slumps and says like a child, ‘Do I have to?’

‘No. You don’t have to. Neither of us _have_ to.’

She sits up pushes his arm away, eyes wide. ‘Kyouichi! You can’t mean to abandon him.’

‘No, of course I don’t mean that.’ He doesn’t know what he does mean, except that he’s tired of all of it. ‘We don’t need to decide which of us will fight until the next letter comes, unless he’s being hurt.’ He wonders at his own cruelty, to just casually decide he can leave Touga’s freedom until next week, but at the same time he’d moved out to get a little space from Touga after the party. If he has to be the Victor he’s definitely not going to get that.

* * *

Shiori wants a servant more than a boyfriend, someone to brush her hair, do her nails and bring her cups of tea. It makes her feel important to have someone at her beck and call, but she doesn’t demand Touga feel any particular way about this so he doesn’t bother to. He has no plans for now, barely any intentions, therefore it’s easiest to be silent and pliant.

She insists that he go to school with her, but not that he go to class, so he puts a ‘Do Not Enter’ sign on the greenhouse and sits down on the paved area inside it, where he can’t be seen through its windows. Tora hunts insects among the rose bushes and comes back with a butterfly wing sticking out of her mouth.

The door opens and Kyouichi walks in, shutting it carefully behind him and then leaning against the wall and folding his arms.

Touga blinks at him. ‘Is class over already?’

‘No,’ says Kyouichi. ‘Are you okay?’

‘It’s nothing Shiori’s done,’ Touga says. ‘At least, not in that sense.’

‘She beat you at your own game.’

‘Yes.’ He curls away from Kyouichi, hiding behind the fall of his hair. ‘The previous Victor could be manipulated because she cared too much, too easily, and with too little knowledge. It was easy to make her think the best of people, to distract her from the plots around her with hopes for friendship. I always thought that was the biggest weakness someone could have.’

‘And now?’ Kyouichi’s voice is harsh.

‘She was brave.’ It’s not an answer. Kyouichi’s not asking what he thinks of Utena. ‘Brave enough to be kind, however unwisely. In the end that was enough.’ She’d made Touga doubt the way he lived, both when he’d failed to defeat her and when he’d failed to win her over. Now, in her absence, she’s forcing that doubt on him again and, as before, it leaves him with no idea what else he could be but this. Last time he’d gone to Kyouichi and had some level of truth dragged out of him, now Kyouichi’s come to him and he’s still no better at letting him in. ‘She was kind even to me.’

‘Will you be all right if we wait for the next letter to Duel?’ Kyouichi asks.

That’s what he came to check, then. They neither want Touga back, nor can they leave him, so they procrastinate. Isn’t that what he wanted? For them to be unable to get close and unable to leave, never fully seeing him and never abandoning him? ‘It’s fine. As I said, she’s not hurting me.’

Kyouichi leaves and Touga tries not to have any feelings about that, either.

* * *

For the next week Touga seems to haunt the school more than attending it. Nanami catches sight of him walking a few steps behind Shiori and her friends, or leaning on the fencing hall’s balcony to watch Shiori practice, but he’s never in the cafeteria at lunch or on the field and Kyouichi tells her he doesn’t attend classes.

‘You know where he is,’ Kyouichi says. ‘Talk to him if you want to.’

Nanami doesn’t want to talk to him, but she peers through the greenhouse window sometimes to see him sitting with Tora in his arms. It’s not that she doesn’t miss him, it’s that she’s already used to doing so.

* * *

The day the letter comes Kyouichi goes looking for Touga in the greenhouse at lunchtime. For the first time he’s not there. Tora is, though, and she comes running over with a trill to rub around his legs until he scratches her ears.

‘Did you miss me?’ he asks, in response to her raspy purr. ‘I thought you didn’t like me.’ He’s not good with animals, his movements are too fast and he’s too unsure, they make each other nervous. He crouches down to continue scratching Tora’s ears. ‘I was looking for your master,’ he says. ‘I wanted to talk to him. Not that there’s anything to say.’ Tora purrs encouragingly. ‘I’m going to have to Duel, I can’t make Nanami handle that again. Not the way he teases her.’ He shakes his head. Tora abruptly decides she’s had enough and starts washing herself. ‘Maybe it’s easier for you to love him because you don’t understand anything he says,’ Kyouichi tells her.

He looks at the roses, dusky magenta ones like Shiori’s colour in the arena, but turns away without picking one.

Shiori is reading a book in the cafeteria, Touga sat nearby, hands folded neatly and eyes downcast. He looks like a statue, unmoving and unnoticed, and doesn’t look up until Kyouichi’s standing over him.

‘Touga,’ Kyouichi begins. ‘Can I talk to you?’

Shiori looks up. ‘Did you want something, Saionji-sempai?’

‘I want to talk to Touga.’

She shakes her head. ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. I can’t have my Bride plotting with the competition.’ A sweet, poisonous smile. ‘I’m sure you understand.’

Touga is looking down again, everything about his pose suggesting he’s not even aware of Kyouichi’s presence. It’s different from the almost playful way he obeyed and defied Keiko, catching Kyouichi’s eye behind her back, and Kyouichi’s not sure how to read that difference.

‘No, I don’t. Let me talk to him,’ Kyouichi tries stubbonly.

Shiori gestures to Touga. ‘You can say what you like, I can’t stop you.’ She doesn’t need to say that he won’t answer.

Kyouichi clenches his fists and turns away. He should challenge her now. There’s not going to be a chance to consult Touga before he does, so what is he waiting for? One more conversation with Nanami about why it has to be him? There’s nothing to wait for and still he turns away, telling himself that tomorrow will be soon enough.

* * *

Shiori provided Touga with a futon on her floor and that’s where he lies now, rigid as a corpse under the covers. There had been no challenge. Kyouichi had wanted to talk to him instead. What else could could he need to tell Touga but that neither he nor Nanami will be Dueling again? At least they weren’t going to leave Touga to hope. Oh, it hurts, though, almost worse than the swords, to lose the two whose love he’s been relying on for more than half his life. He wants to be angry, ready to retaliate as he had been when Nanami tried to transfer schools, but all he feels is shame like grease sinking through his skin to leave his insides heavy and dirty. They’ve grown beyond his ability to control them and he’s given them no other reason to stay.

His phone is gone, Shiori took it, and he feels the judgement in her not bothering until today. Knowing he wouldn’t try to make amends until another Duel was close. Instead he slips from the futon and crouches by his suitcase to rummage for the money he brought. His movements are slow, silent, with a grace born of furtiveness.

Downstairs in the foyer there’s a payphone, he pads there on bare feet and slips the coins in one by one.

It rings and rings and then someone answers, just awake and unhappy about it. ‘Saionji Kyouichi, Kiryuu residence, who the hell is this?’

‘You wanted to talk to me.’ Touga’s voice is so quiet in the empty hall he can barely hear himself.

‘Not at three o’clock on the morning!’

‘Shiori’s taken my phone. It’s now or never, I’m afraid.’ _Say it, say you’re done with me._ The hall seems to swallow Touga, looming around him in the darkness. _Or say you’ll come back for me and I’ll do better, I’ll be good this time, don’t leave me here._ The words echo in his head but only there, like shouting from inside a coffin.

‘Fine.’ He can hear Kyouichi shift the phone, probably rubbing his eyes, gathering his thoughts after being startled out of sleep. ‘I just wanted to know if it would work, me Dueling instead of Nanami at this point.’

‘Yes, it would work. It makes no difference.’ Touga has no idea and doesn’t even care, he’s shaking hard enough with relief that he leans against the wall in an effort to stop it. ‘I mean, I’d be glad for either of you to win me.’

‘Okay. Good.’ He can hear the heavy resignation in Kyouichi’s voice and he could leave it there. Kyouichi’s coming for him, regardless.

‘It doesn’t have to be that bad,’ he offers, instead. ‘I can stay out of your way if that’s what you want.’

Kyouichi snorts. ‘If I order you to?’

‘No.’ That was a game, pushing to see if Nanami would resort to orders. This isn’t. ‘If you ask.’

‘Touga…’ There’s a sudden aching longing in Kyouichi’s voice, as if he wants to reach through the phone.

‘I missed you,’ Touga says.

He can hear Kyouichi’s smile. ‘It’s only been a week.’

‘It feels longer.’

Kyouichi lets a few beats of silence draw out and then says, ‘I should sleep if I’m going to fight tomorrow.’

‘I’ll let you go, then,’ Touga says. ‘Sleep well.’

* * *

Kyouichi goes after Shiori before she’s even reached the school and flings a magenta rose at her feet with a feeling of triumph.

‘I was expecting Nanami-kun,’ she says.

‘Too bad, you’re going to be fighting me, so you’d better be ready,’ he says.

Behind her, Touga catches his eyes with a hesitant smile.

* * *

It felt like a reprieve when Nanami woke up to Kyouichi humming tunelessly as he cooked breakfast. He’d told her he was going to Duel as soon as he saw her, almost like he was excited for a kendo match, and Nanami’s grateful both that she won’t have to and that she won’t have to prod and beg until he fights against his will.

Now she steps out onto the viewing platform and calls ‘hello’ to Miki and Juri. To her surprise, Wakabas’s there too, sitting on the wall with her legs swinging over open space. She turns and waves at Nanami, throwing her whole body into the gesture. Miki’s wave is also friendly, but less dramatic, and Juri pays no attention at all, glued miserably to the arena. Nanami steps around the half built tandem lying in the middle of the viewing platform and goes over to join them.

Wakaba cheers as Saionji reaches the top of the stairs. ‘Go, Saionji-sempai!’

Nanami laughs, shouts, ‘Go, Kyouichi!’ and hopes that, while Kyouichi definitely can’t hear them, they’re disturbing the Chairman in the middle of something important.

* * *

Touga leans close as he places Kyouichi’s rose. His eyes are veiled by lashes as he watches his hands, and the sudden brilliant blue as he looks up comes in time with a hand stroking down Kyouichi’s chest as it falls away from the rose. _He’s going to kiss me,_ Kyouichi thinks, heart speeding up. Then, _no he’s not._ Then the memory of watching Shiori kiss Touga from the platform comes back to him with an awful clarity and he thinks, _she can’t complain,_ before spreading his hand against Touga’s back and pulling him into a kiss.

Touga’s startled, but not unwilling, and he pulls back looking like the cat that got the cream.

‘Touga.’ Shiori commands.

He turns and bows to her, face falling into blankness. ‘Yes, Shiori-sama.’ Her rose is placed with cool precision and when she steals a kiss too it’s accepted just as impersonally. The difference between kissing the Rose Bride and kissing Touga.

Shiori draws the sword easily and Kyouichi feels the nagging guilt of his last failure. He tries to push it down. It’s Touga who has got better at having it drawn, it wasn’t that Kyouichi was rougher than she is.

‘Grant me the power to bring world revolution!’ Shiori says, fervently enough for Kyouichi to realise she believes it.

Kyouichi’s first stroke pushes Shiori back, but she grins as she parries. ‘This shouldn’t be too hard. The previous Victor beat you with a broken _shinai_.’

Hitting out more against her words than her sword, Kyoiuichi’s next stroke goes wild. He quickly parries and recovers, backing off slightly. Touga’s standing against the wall, watching, and Kyouichi’s expecting judgement or amusement in his eyes, but finds only concern. A sudden flash of memory, himself as a child in one of his first kendo competitions, Touga watching from the stands with that same look. On his side.

He strikes with more precision, the strength behind his blows hard for Shiori to stand up to when he forces her to parry rather than dodging.

‘You’ll be fine if you just stay calm,’ says Touga’s voice, a memory from before that childhood match, coupled with deft hands tying his hair tie. ‘So do your best. I want it to be you I fight in the final.’

‘I’ll try, Touga.’

‘You’re better than any of them.’

Kyouichi knocks Shiori’s sword aside hard enough to send it clattering across the arena and hits the rose on the backswing. Magenta petals fill the air and the bells ring deafeningly.

Touga steps forward, hands clasped in front of him. ‘I am the Rose Bride —’

Kyouichi grabs his shoulders. ‘Believe me, if that was all you were I wouldn’t have bothered fighting.’

* * *

Juri rides down with Nanami in the elevator.

‘Are you going to comfort Takatsuki-san?’ Nanami asks.

‘I don’t know,’ Juri answers. She’s leaning against the edge of the elevator, in her old position.

‘I won’t judge you,’ says Nanami. ‘She’s awful, but she’s no worse than my brother.’

‘She’ll hate me for seeing her defeated,’ says Juri. ‘There’s nothing I could say to comfort her.’ She touches her fingers to her throat and shakes her head. ‘No, I won’t come. I wasn’t thinking.’

* * *

It’s Kyouichi and Nanami who talk on the way home, Nanami offering congratulations and the information that she and Wakaba had been cheering for him. Touga walks a step behind and keeps his head down, until Kyouichi grabs his wrist and tugs him alongside them.

‘Why are you doing the Rose Bride thing?’ he asks.

‘I told you I’d stay out of your way if you wanted me to.’ It sounds too passive-aggressive when he doesn’t mean it and he shakes his head, dropping the demure pose. ‘Really. I know you’re fed up with me right now. I can stay quiet if it helps.’

‘It doesn’t help when you act like some kind of mechanical doll, it’s just creepy.’

‘How would you like me to act?’ he asks.

‘Maybe like we’re friends.’

Touga tugs against the grip on his wrist and, when Kyouichi relaxes it, he slips his hand through just far enough to twine their fingers together. They stay hand in hand as they walk home.


	8. Chapter 8

It’s a hot Sunday morning when Touga flings himself down at the breakfast table with the kind of flair usually reserved for making an entrance on stage. ‘We should go somewhere,’ he announces.

‘Where?’ Kyouichi asks, sliding an omelette onto his plate.

‘Anywhere but here.’

Nanami takes a bite of her own omelette. She remembers Touga in this kind of mood from their childhood, cycling off with Kyouichi perched on the back of his bike. ‘We could go to the beach,’ she says, inspired by the sun streaming through the window and her own sudden desire to include herself quickly. ‘I don’t think I’ve been there since we were children.’

Touga smiles at her. ‘If you like. We can take my car.’ He so obviously relishes that thought that Nanami wonders if the whole idea of an excursion is because he’s got his driving license now. ‘Kyouichi?’

‘It’s fine with me,’ says Kyouichi. ‘It would be nice to get out of here.’

Nanami discovers when she goes to pack that the only swimsuit she has that fits her is her school one. It’s not _too_ bad she tells herself. It’s black and a reasonable design. The Rose Crest is emblazoned on one hip like a brand. She throws it across the room and just packs towels and sunglasses. ‘We need to stop at a shop on the way,’ she calls to Touga as she comes downstairs. ‘I need a new swimsuit.’

‘Fine, fine,’ he calls back and throws a bottle of sunscreen across the room to Kyouichi, who catches it and packs it in the bag with their lunch. ‘Which seat do you want in the car?’

‘I’ll take the back one,’ she answers.

Touga’s car isn’t an exact match for the Chairman’s. It’s black, for a start, which Nanami appreciates, although Touga would have really been pushing his luck asking for a red one. She’d expected Touga to drive like the Chairman, although maybe not entirely what with not having a magic sex car, but he’s a very new and very conscientious driver. He checks the mirror twice before pulling out and sticks to the speed limit, not relaxing until they’re on a main road. At that point he tips his head back so that his hair blows in the wind and suddenly looks very debonair and pleased with himself. He opens his mouth, but Kyouichi interrupts.

‘Touga, if you say _anything_ about the throb of the engine I’m going to punch you.’

Touga shuts his mouth and shakes with silent laughter. ‘Did you know,’ he says, conversationally. ‘That Nanami gave me explicit permission to do “weird things” in this car, but only with you?’

‘Don’t put it like that!’ Nanami says, kicking the back of his seat. ‘You’re the one that brought Kyouichi into it.’

‘And you made a special exception…’

‘Both of you, shut up,’ says Kyouichi, burying his red face in his hands.

* * *

The shop they stop at to get Nanami’s swimsuit is a typical seaside shop, selling swimsuits, beach balls, buckets and spades and an array of kites shaped like birds, butterflies and fish. Nanami runs off to try on a swimsuit and Touga leans on the counter, intending to chat up the sales girl. He remembers a little too late that he probably shouldn’t but manages to tone it down and stick to small talk without looking too much like he’d absolutely been intending to hit on her and then remembered he had a boyfriend. Or, whatever they are. Kyouichi stops watching them and wanders off to contemplate the tackiest pair of flip-flops in the entire shop, which Touga follows to tell him.

When Nanami comes back they’re trying on sunglasses. ‘You look like a secret agent in those,’ Kyouichi’s saying as Touga admires himself in mirrored shades. He rather likes how unreadable he is in them. ‘Take them off.’

‘I’m done,’ she says, holding up her shopping bag. ‘Are you buying those?’

‘No,’ Touga slips them back onto the rack. ‘We were just passing the time.’

* * *

Kyouichi’s never been to the beach outside of school trips, not in the sense of going to the beach for a day. It’s somewhere parents take their kids. He sort of wants to build a sandcastle, but he’s probably too old for that. He watches the few families dotted around the beach with curiosity, though.

Nanami hands him the sunscreen. ‘Do my back, Kyouichi?’ she says. He does and she perches a pair of heart-shaped shades on her nose and lies down on the beach towel with a sigh of contentment.

‘Do mine too,’ Touga says lazily, giving Kyouichi a heavy lidded look, and Kyouichi feels a moment’s disturbing relief that Touga’s flirting with him and not Nanami. It is a lot harder to to concentrate while rubbing suncream into Touga’s back than Nanami’s, even more so when Touga does his in return, leaning close enough his hair tickles Kyouichi’s ears.

Touga falls into an effortless pose on one of the towels while Kyouichi contemplates the sea. He’s thinking of going swimming, but the sea is going to be cold. Should he ease himself in, get it over with, or wait until later?

Touga makes up his mind for him by standing up and pointing to a rock that’s definitely out of their depth. ‘Race you there?’ he says.

‘Race you,’ says Kyouichi, nodding. ‘Go!’

They run, both fiercely competitive by nature, splashing into the sea without a second thought. It is cold, making Kyouichi gasp as he plunges past his waist and leans forward to start swimming, but it’s invigorating too. He surprises himself by touching the rock first, Touga coming in behind him with a small frown that’s not really directed at him. Touga is ever the perfectionist.

Touga hauls himself out onto the rock so he can use both hands to wipe dripping strands of hair back from his face, curling his legs under him. Then he leans back, eyes closed, enjoying the sun on his face but also clearly enjoying how beautiful he knows he looks. Kyouichi enjoys it too, folding his arms on the edge of the rock and bobbing there contentedly.

‘You should tie your hair back if you’re going to swim,’ Kyouichi says, idly, his own ponytail floating behind him.

‘I don’t like the way it feels,’ Touga answers. He looks towards the shore and Kyouichi follows his gaze to see Nanami in her yellow swimsuit easing her way into the water.

‘How strong a swimmer is she?’ Kyouichi asks.

Touga rocks his hand. ‘We don’t need to worry, though, she doesn’t go beyond her depth.’ He slips easily off the rock and back into the water alongside Kyouichi, brushing past him with a touch that tingles like electricity. ‘Let’s go back and see if she’s made it in by the time we reach her.’

* * *

Nanami is wandering in the shallows when Touga swims up beside her and sits up in water. ‘It’s not that cold,’ he says. Kyouichi follows a moment later, flipping over to float on his back rather than sitting down.

‘I’m not planning on swimming,’ Nanami says, with dignity. ‘It would ruin my hair.’ She reaches for a pretty pink and white shell and drops it with a shriek when something pinches her. Both of them make a move towards her and she shakes her head. ‘Hermit crab.’ Maybe she should stick to the beach if the sea life has it in for her. There could be jellyfish or sea urchins. On the other hand, the boys are swimming, and don’t seem to mind swimming in the general area where she is. Maybe the hermit crab just didn’t like having his house picked up, she’ll just… try not to disturb the natives.

She picks her way along delicately, while the boys race and roughhouse a little deeper. Touga can swim underwater longer, but he his hair always blinds him when he comes up, so they’re about even on sneak attacks.

Nanami steps out onto a rock to peer into a rockpool, feeling rough barnacles and slick seaweed beneath her feet. There are a few little crabs in the rockpool, but with Nanami nowhere near them they’re not inclined to do anything but live their little crab lives. She walks along, balancing carefully and feeling the sun on her body. Above her seagulls wheel and cry. They’re probably not the sort of birds the chick and egg speech was about, but Nanami thinks suddenly that it would be wonderful to hatch into a bird like that. To fly so effortlessly and for so long.

A splash nearby makes her turn to look at the sea and she sees a red tail that must belong to a fish bigger than she is. She gasps and crouches down, not sure why she thinks that will help when the fish is underwater anyway. The tail flickers away beneath the water and the silhouette she sees is human shaped.

‘Big brother!’ she shouts, although it takes a few times before he comes close enough to hear her.

‘What is it Nanami?’ he asks, arms folded on the edge of the rocks. ‘Be careful, the water’s quite deep here if you fall in.’

‘I saw a mermaid,’ she says.

Touga laughs, tipping his head back as he does, and Nanami risks leaning forward enough to splash water at him.

Kyouichi swims over a moment later. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nanami thinks she saw a mermaid,’ Touga answers.

‘I _did_ see a mermaid,’ says Nanami. She sits down on the edge of the rock and pushes herself into the water, gasping at how cold it is. ‘I’m going to find it.’

‘Nanami…’ says Touga, frowning at her.

‘I can hold onto the rocks if I need to,’ Nanami says, demonstrating. ‘See? And I’ll go back towards the beach. Don’t worry.’

Nanami’s a stronger swimmer than she probably seems, doggy paddling around the rocks to keep her hair as much out of the water as possible. She’s watching the water eagle-eyed, though. She’s going to catch a mermaid and prove they exist and then maybe they’ll grant her a wish — do mermaids grant wishes? Probably not. She’s trying to remember what mermaids do when Kyouichi swims over to say it’s nearly lunch time.

‘Just a little longer? I want to find her while she’s still in this area,’ Nanami says.

Kyouichi shrugs. ‘Okay, but we can’t wait until you find a mermaid to have lunch.’

Nanami scowls as he swims off. Of course _Touga_ doesn’t believe her, but she’s annoyed that Kyouichi doesn’t either. She’ll show them. The flash of a red tail catches her eye and she pushes off from the rocks in a way her swimming teacher would be proud of, making a grab at the trailing tail fins.

She comes up treading water and gripping it in one hand triumphantly to see Touga treading water in an awkward position across from her and looking about as startled as she feels.

‘Nanami that’s my toe,’ he says, patiently.

‘No, it’s not!’ Nanami says, letting go of it. ‘You have a _tail!_ ’

* * *

Kyouichi watches incredulously as Touga turns onto his back and jack-knifes his lower body out of the water. A ruby red tail emerges in a spray of glittering water. He grabs the tail fins at either side of it with a look of pure incredulity before vanishing under water and having to let go to right himself.

‘How did you not notice!’ Nanami says, a little hysterically as Touga holds onto the rocks with one hand so he can feel his new tail with the other. Her face suddenly goes suspicious behind her heart-shaped shades. ‘Are you _pranking_ me?’

‘Of course not, I have no idea how this happened.’

‘Not that I want you to panic,’ says Kyouichi. ‘But you seem awfully calm.’

Touga shakes his head. ‘Nanami’s right, I must have done it, I just didn’t do it on purpose. Having Anthy’s role seems to have given me some power, but I’m not even aware of it most of the time.’ He puts both hands on the rocks behind him and splashes the water experimentally with his tail. ‘This is going to be really inconvenient when I want to get out, though.’

‘Maybe it will vanish when you’re on dry land?’ Kyouichi says uncertainly. Do mermaids work like that? Maybe he’s thinking of a movie, or an anime. Then again, what matters is how _Touga_ thinks mermaids work.

‘It couldn’t hurt to try,’ Touga says.

The three of them make their way back around the rockpools until they can stand again. Well, two of them can. Touga can sort of coil himself into a sitting position, or crawl along with his tail dragging behind him as it gets shallower. Kyouichi hesitates and then says, ‘Can I carry you?’

‘Probably a good idea,’ Touga admits. ‘But _can_ you?’

Kyouichi can, actually. It feels very peculiar to have Touga’s muscular back resting against one arm while cool scales drape over the other. He hopes no one on the beach can see them closely enough to realise how strange this is. Touga relaxes against him, one arm around his neck, wet hair streaming down his chest, and Kyouichi feels strangely tender for the trust being shown.

Then Touga looks up, an odd light in his eyes. ‘Kiss me.’

‘What?’

‘I’m serious. Kiss me.’ He tips his head slightly to the side, seawater clinging to his lashes. ‘Or don’t you want to?’

Kyouichi kisses him. Touga tastes of salt water, lips slightly chapped, and kisses in the same intoxicating way he always does. Then Kyouichi realises he can feel legs draped over his arm instead of a tail and drops Touga in sheer surprise. Touga sits up in the shallows spluttering with laughter while Kyouichi stares.

‘What kind of _Little Mermaid_ bullshit?’ he asks when he finds his voice. ‘You did that on purpose.’

Touga holds up his hands. ‘I didn’t, I swear, I wouldn’t even know how.’

‘Well, I’m glad that’s over,’ says Nanami. ‘Let’s get lunch.’

* * *

They eat dinner in a seaside restaurant that evening and come home late enough that Nanami falls asleep in the car. It’s been a good day, Touga thinks, accidentally turning into a merman notwithstanding. Going back into the water had worried the other two at first until he pointed out Kyouichi could just kiss him again. Kyouichi had blushed, but agreed, and Touga had remained human anyway.

They pull in beside the mansion and Touga sighs at the sight of it. ‘Nanami,’ he says. ‘We’re home.’

She stirs and yawns, looking terribly young half asleep in her yellow sundress. She gets out of the car and stretches then turns to smile at him. ‘I had a really good time,’ she says. He finds himself looking away, unsure how to respond to her seeming both younger and older than he expects her to be. Nanami takes her bag from the back of the car and heads up the path.

‘It was good,’ says Kyouichi, as he retrieves the empty lunch bag. ‘I’d never been to the beach before. I mean, like that.’ He looks content, eyebrows smoothed out of their near constant frown.

‘Yes,’ says Touga. It was. He wonders for a moment if that’s what the outside world is like, but of course it’s not. Nothing is like a perpetual holiday. They hadn’t even, he reminds himself brushing a hand over his hip and remembering scales, been outside Ohtori’s magic.

By the time Touga’s checked on Tora, Nanami’s gone upstairs to shower. Touga smiles flirtatiously at Kyouichi. ‘I’m going to shower too. Want to join me?’

‘I… I’m not sure…’ Kyouichi says, grave and halting.

‘If you don’t, I might turn into seafoam and wash down the drain,’ Touga says.

The look on Kyouichi’s face is horrified and confused at the same time.

Touga laughs. ‘ _The Little Mermaid_ ,’ he says. ‘You haven’t read it, have you?’

‘Damn it,’ Kyouichi says. ‘Don’t _say_ things like that.’

‘I’m not in any danger from you not showering with me,’ says Touga deliberately. ‘But I would appreciate it if you did shower with me. Or came to bed with me afterwards. Or something.’ He steps closer as he talks, backing Kyouichi up against the wall. ‘Because, while your intentions are undoubtedly noble, being rejected isn’t very much fun.’

‘I’m not trying to reject you,’ Kyouichi protests, eyes widening.

‘I know.’ Touga catches Kyouichi’s wrists and pins them against the wall. ‘You’re trying to protect me. Do I seem like I need it?’

‘Yes.’ The blunt answer shocks Touga into letting go, but Kyouichi doesn’t move, just licks his lips and says. ‘The Chairman, the Duels, you keep doing things that get you hurt.’

‘I see,’ says Touga, turning away. ‘So I’m the Rose Bride to you, after all.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be a lighthearted chapter and it stayed that way _almost_ right to the end.


	9. Chapter 9

‘Are we done with this round of Duels?’ Touga asks. Akio sits on the couch across from him, sipping a glass of wine. ‘Will I need to remember our missing round in order to recreate it?’

‘The Black Rose Duels were an experiment,’ says Akio. ‘A successful one, but not an integral part of the Duels. Which is a good thing because you, my little witch, can’t raise the dead for me. That exhausted even Anthy.’

Touga hides the chill that goes down his spine, less at the inclusion of ghosts than at the thought of trying to match Anthy’s abilities. Sometimes he feels his position here is rather that of a 2V battery plugged into a car. ‘So, we’re moving on to what was our third round?’

‘Not yet. Your sister and Saionji have yet to Duel.’

‘Do they need to? Nanami would simply forfeit.’

‘Yet her stint as your Champion was very successful.’ Akio leans forward. ‘It needs to be a real fight. Only the strongest should enter the second round as Victor.’

‘They have no reason to fight,’ Touga says.

‘Because you act as if you belong to both of them at once,’ Akio tells him. ‘You waver between them instead of devoting yourself to one to stoke the jealousy of the other.’

‘Jealousy?’ Touga shakes his head and swallows his pride. ‘They won’t fight over me, I’m more their problem than their prize. Setting them against each other like that is impossible.’

‘If they won’t fight for any reason other than to protect you, we’ll have to encourage them to protect you from each other. You’re good at goading them.’

Touga closes his eyes. It could work. Goad them seperately, make sure they see the results of each other’s anger and lie about the cause. Convince them that they’ll do better in future but the other one won’t. They’ll be ashamed, but that might only make them more amenable to taking on the role of protector. As long as they never found out his manipulation he could even keep them both, talk to them in secret from one another, insist they’re the one that’s really on his side…

And never have both of them in the same place again. No more daytrips, no more card games, no more overheard cooking lessons, no more keeping them close and still having them happy sometimes because they have each other to buffer his cruelty. He’s been afraid of losing control of them for so long and now, given a plan to regain it, he’s scared of _that_ because for a little while he might have had a chance to become a better person.

‘They won’t forgive me if I try and they realise what I’m doing,’ he says. ‘If the Victor’s strength was caring about the Rose Bride, this will destroy any hope of fostering it in them.’

Akio leans forward, voice dropping to a confidential purr. ‘They’ve forgiven you before.’

‘They have.’ _And when they haven’t, you’ve been there to pick up the pieces. To give me a new role to fill when I couldn’t bear defeat and no one cared but Nanami. To draw me into your bed when I sold Kyouichi to you and again when I pushed Nanami so far._ He tries to hide the spasm of anger, the wary bitterness of a hurt animal. ‘They won’t forever.’

‘You’d be surprised how long someone who loves you can forgive you.’

‘Yet even _her_ forgiveness didn’t last forever.’ The words drop acid from his tongue and he sees the flash of pain in Akio’s eyes. The hand yanking his hair like a bellpull, dragging him boneless to the floor, is worth the satisfaction. He gasps through the memories, through white sheets and white couches blending and Akio’s hand far too like his father’s. ‘I’m not doing it.’

‘Do you suddenly have scruples about using them?’

‘No. But if I’m to get anything out of this game, I need at least one of them with me at the end. I’m not going to make them hate me for a battle where the outcome doesn’t affect my plans.’ He grits his teeth and forces himself to his knees. ‘I won’t…’ he gasps ‘…I won’t be without a Champion.’

Akio suddenly lets go of him. ‘Very well. I’ll find some other way to deal with this problem. You may leave.’

Touga climbs to his feet and walks shakily to the elevator.

* * *

Kyouichi’s waiting up and half-heartedly reading a history book. He looks up when he hears Touga’s steps. ‘Enjoy your evening?’ he bites out.

Touga surprises him by sitting on the arm of the chair and burying his face in Kyouichi’s hair. ‘You and Nanami will be Dueling soon.’

Kyouichi shrugs. ‘That’s no big deal.’

‘The Chairman thinks it is. He doesn’t approve of the way I’ve been living, so I probably won’t be living like this much longer. I doubt he can separate Victor and Bride, but a losing Duelist who happens to share the same house? You’ll have to sort out for yourselves who would rather deal with me constantly and who would rather do without me completely. Or draw straws, I suppose, if neither of you wants to be the Victor.’

Kyouichi’s more than used to Touga’s bitter tongue, but he’s never heard it turned inwards before. ‘Or if we both want to be?’ he asks.

‘In that case the Chairman will get the genuine fight he was hoping for, but I wouldn’t say much for his chances.’

Kyouichi wraps an arm around Touga and pulls him down into the chair with him. ‘He wouldn’t want you telling me this, would he?’

Touga settles himself comfortably and wraps his arms around Kyouichi in turn. ‘I’ve said a lot of things to you that he wouldn’t have wanted me to. He doesn’t like Duelists having information unless they’re his protegées, and even then he gives them less information than they think.’

‘“Them” meaning you?’ Kyouichi asks, pointedly.

Touga sighs. ‘Meaning me.’

Kyouichi stays quiet for a moment and then says, with some trepedition but genuine curiosity, ‘Who do you want to win?’

Touga shakes his head. ‘I think if I knew that the Chairman would mind less.’

The following silence lasts a while and Kyouichi realises that Touga’s breath is evening out, deepening. ‘If you’re going to fall asleep you should go to bed,’ he says softly.

Touga’s arms tighten around him. ‘But I like it here.’

Kyouichi wonders how much of their fighting about sex has really been about affection in the only way Touga knows it. Has _he_ ever tried hugging Touga when it hasn’t been post-coital? ‘Okay,’ he says, the word more of a breath. If they fall asleep like this they might both regret it in the morning, but right now he doesn’t want to move either.

* * *

‘You’d win even if I did try,’ says Nanami. ‘Unless that tomboy interferes.’

‘Who? The previous Victor?’ Kyouichi says. ‘Isn’t she on your side?’

‘Who knows? It’s weird.’ They’re sitting in the kendo hall because it is, when there’s no training going on, a private place. Bars of light fall across the wooden floor. Nanami taps her fingers on it. ‘Maybe you’ll get possessed now you’ve got the sword.’

‘I doubt it,’ he says. ‘We never saw eye to eye.’

‘I’d rather you win,’ she says. She sort of hates admitting it, sort of hates that Touga apparently knows that, even if it’s entirely his fault. She sighs. ‘If the Chairman makes us all split up, I’ll miss you more than I miss him.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘Do you really need to ask?’ But it seems he does, so Nanami continues. ‘You’re the one that’s been nice to me this year. Made me tea, taught me to cook, looked at nail varnish with me even. I keep turning to you for comfort instead of my brother, because you’ll _mean_ it instead of just soothing me and not listening.’ She stops because her eyes sting and she’s not going to cry for a thousand hugs that had comforted her without touching her brother’s heart at all, or for conversations where he hadn’t been listening. It’s not even cruelty, it’s not even something she has a right to mind, that his kindness had been offhand. Kyouichi won’t look at her and she wonders whether he’s embarrassed until she catches the trail of water on his cheek. ‘Hey, are you crying?’

‘No!’ he reaches up and brushes at it with one hand. ‘…I’ll miss you too,’ he mutters.

* * *

Touga’s the one who finds the two letters on the table by the door, the Rose Crest emblazoned on both in red wax. For a wild moment he considers burning them. Instead he carries them through to the living room where Nanami is reading a magazine and Kyouichi is studying and hands them to their intended recipients. He sits down on the floor, equidistant from both of them, and waits for the letters to be read.

‘Do I need to challenge you properly with a rose?’ Nanami asks.

‘Doubt it,’ says Kyouichi. ‘Tomorrow after school?’

‘Does it have to be that soon?’ says Nanami.

‘We shouldn’t delay the Dueling cycle,’ says Kyouichi. ‘We want it to end.’

Touga stays still and quiet, lets them talk over his head. He’s going to miss them. One of them. Them together. Sometimes they make him feel like a ghost in his own house, never as real as they are even when he’s the centre of attention, but it’s better than the emptiness that came before. Nanami can’t bring life to the house by herself.

‘Tomorrow after school,’ Nanami says, and continues in a small voice, ‘We’ll still be able to come back here afterwards, won’t we? He hasn’t _forbidden_ it, so we can just keep going until he does.’

‘I don’t know,’ Kyouichi says. ‘Touga?’

‘I don’t know either,’ Touga says. ‘He didn’t tell me to stop you.’

‘Then we will,’ says Nanami, as if she can decide for all of them. ‘If he doesn’t like it he can do something instead of just implying things to my brother.’

Touga winces. ‘You might not like what he does.’

‘I don’t like being scared of him all the time,’ she snaps back. ‘ _I’m_ coming back here, anyway.’

‘It’s your house,’ Kyouichi says. ‘It’s me he’d make move. And Touga goes with the Victor.’

‘Ugh,’ says Nanami. ‘Aren’t _you_ tired of being scared.’

‘I’m not scared!’ Kyouichi protests, childishly. ‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t come back here.’

‘Good,’ Nanami says. ‘Tomorrow then.’

* * *

Miki hands Nanami two thick envelopes at lunchtime. They’re brown and look like they might contain manuscripts, so at the very least he’s not passing them along from Ends of the World.

‘What are these?’ she asks.

‘Notes,’ says Miki. ‘This is the last match of a round and that sometimes seems to mean we forget stuff. So, this is what we know about last year and this year and what I was speculating on. I thought we should all have a copy, in case. Pass one on to Saionji-san?’

‘Of course.’ Nanami looks at the two envelopes, trying to figure out what’s bothering her. ‘There’s not one for my brother?’ she says.

‘Ah, should there be?’ Miki asks. ‘I mean, he’s the Bride, so I didn’t think he’d forget.’

‘And you didn’t think he’d tell us if he remembered?’

Miki looks dismayed at the prospect of an argument, but he says, ‘Do _you_ think he would?’

‘He’s not on the Chairman’s side!’ Nanami snaps at him. ‘Maybe he keeps secrets, but he’s not… he wouldn’t just… oh, what do you know?’

‘Sorry,’ Miki says. ‘I can’t get another copied up before tonight.’

Nanami clutches at the envelopes full of precious information, sorry for shouting at Miki and not good at saying it. ‘You’ve been working hard,’ she says, instead.

* * *

Kyouichi leafs through the information he’s been handed. He’s been less in contact with Miki and Juri than Nanami has, so he wants to see if he’s missed anything. There’s very little, though, that he finds relevant. Some speculation that the missing round of Duels had involved Nemuro Memorial Hall. Scribbled on a list of the Duelists from the missing round is a note that catches his eye.

_Kozue admitted to me that she thinks she did get an invitation to be on the student council this year. When she saw the Rose Seal she tore it up without reading it. I asked her why and she told me, ‘Wild animals don’t put their necks into collars.’_

* * *

The Duelists stand facing one another as Touga emerges, both looking resigned. Nanami is carrying her sword, but the wickedly curved blade is trailing on the flagstones. Touga steps forward to do his duty, roses appearing in his hands, and places Nanami’s swiftly and deftly, fingers not brushing against her breasts. He knows it reveals the purpose and spite of his earlier actions, to do better now, and won’t meet her eyes.

Kyouichi he touches, leans into, and Kyouichi wraps an arm around him in turn, trembling just slightly. ‘It will be okay,’ Touga whispers. ‘I’m used to it now. You draw it more gently than anyone.’ He hopes Nanami can’t hear. It’s not that she’s rough, it’s just that she hates it too much to feel for it the way Kyouichi does.

The sword slides out even more easily than Touga expected as he leans back over Kyouichi’s arm, and when Kyouichi lifts him back to his feet he stands without difficulty.

Nanami’s watching with a sad half-smile, as if this has cemented her determination to lose. Poor Nanami, all alone in that looming grey mansion, with her magazines and photo albums the only splashes of colour. Poor princess in her tower, without even her dragon to curl around it, protective and cruel.

The fight commences all out of time, like actors who failed to practice. Swords clash listlessly. Should Kyouichi attack fast? Should he go slow, let it draw out? Does Nanami defend her rose from instinct or some feeling, some strange sisterly kindness, that she shouldn’t make her wish to lose too obvious? Ah, it’s unfair that these two should ever have to fight. Strange thought, for one who never had reason to expect the world to be fair.

Kyouichi drives Nanami back and then his blows go wide, suddenly unsure. When he and Touga practice kendo lately it’s the same, Touga having to tell him that he won’t win against someone he can’t bear to hit. It’s only bamboo, Kyouichi, you won’t hurt me. I’m not so fragile as that. This time the blade is real and Kyouichi’s too aware of that to strike at the creamy rose hovering above Nanami’s beating heart.

This could go on forever, no one winning, and why, why should anyone win? He loves them both, as much as he’s able, and they, with hearts too warm to be wise, love him too.

The light from above startles him. He didn’t think Utena would come, not for this sham of a fight. The column of light descends, not into Kyouichi or Nanami, but into the space between them. Utena stands there, smiling gently, and then takes each of their blades in one hand, fingers folding over sharp steel as if they really were fighting with _shinai_.

She brings the swords across one another with a sharp motion and green and yellow petals rise in the same instant.

* * *

Nanami drops her sword, feeling like she’s in a dream. ‘Who won?’ she asks.

‘Both of you,’ Touga says, holding out a hand to each of them. ‘From today, I am your flower.’

Nanami takes the hand stretched out to her at the same time Kyouichi takes the other.

* * *

They go home. It _is_ home, Kyouichi thinks, making tea in the familiar kitchen, Tora rubbing around his legs. For a long time home has been somewhere he hasn’t seen since he was seven, somewhere he might perhaps live again one day, after university, when he’s already an adult. When he’s lived up to everything his parents hoped for and they let him return.

It doesn’t matter now, if he never goes back there. He’s wanted here.

‘You’re getting better at this,’ he says, as he hands the tea to Touga, who looks pale and pensive but not sick. ‘The first time you could hardly make it back here.’

‘Nothing’s that bad once you get used to it,’ Touga says, philosophically. Tora jumps into his lap and starts purring.

They sit in a lulling warmth until Touga puts down his empty mug and stands up. ‘I’d better go and see the Chairman.’

* * *

‘Selfish, thoughtless child,’ says Akio, as soon as Touga steps out of the elevator. ‘You’ve derailed the whole cycle because you couldn’t handle being seperated from just one of your devotees.’

Touga was expecting anger, although he doesn’t see how this is his fault, and holds out his hands placatingly. ‘Wasn’t it Tenjou’s doing?’

‘The Prince doesn’t exist,’ says Akio, voice hard as diamonds. ‘Not as anything more than a memory of the one the Bride once loved and still wishes to be saved by.’

Touga reels, struggling to remain on his feet. She’s not trapped in the castle, thank god, she’s not hurt. She’s not here at all, she didn’t come to help him, she’s not there to rely on. His prince. She was, wasn’t she? He’d offered to be hers, tried to force her to be his princess with a crude bargain, but he’d been the one to turn to her for some kind of help, some kind of comfort. _Let me carve this evening into my heart._ Of the two of them, she’d been the strong one, granting a favour to someone who needed her.

‘Then why were you angry with me for not summoning Dios?’ he blurts out, words for once thoughtless. ‘I never met Dios, how could he mean anything to me?’

Akio’s arm wraps around him, supporting him and guiding him towards the couches. ‘Dios was the true Prince,’ he says. ‘The Prince of your childhood stories. No one needed to know him to believe in him.’

Touga lets himself be dropped onto a couch, stays lying where he’s fallen. ‘What will you do now?’ he asks.

Akio arranges him in a more comfortable position, strokes his hair back from his forehead. Touga’s heart beats faster, fearing the punishment to come all the more for the gentleness preceding it. ‘Tonight, nothing. You can leave when you feel better.’

‘And in the future?’

‘Whatever is necessary to get the Duels back on track.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this we reach the end of the Student Council Arc. Please picture Akio wandering around his living room doing a clip show.
> 
> Thank you very much to everyone who's left comments or kudos!


	10. Chapter 10

It’s an evening some time later when the house phone rings. Touga picks it up casually. ‘Hello, Kiryuu Touga speaking.’ Then he straightens, voice suddenly clipped. ‘Hello, mother. Fine. No. Arrested? No, I hadn’t heard. For… I see. No, of course not. Yes, I expect there will be. No. Yes. She’s right here, you can tell her yourself.’ He lifts the receiver away from his ear, so pale his lips are almost white. ‘Mother wants to talk to you.’

Nanami takes the receiver and Touga strides out of the living room. She wonders if he’s going to tell Kyouichi about whatever this is.

‘Hello, mother,’ she says.

‘Hello, Nanami,’ her mother says, tone slightly fussy and harrassed. ‘How are you, dear?’

‘Fine, mother,’ she says.

‘I need to tell you, your father has been arrested. Don’t worry, the charges won’t stick, but you might be bothered by reporters. Remember you don’t have to talk to them.’

‘Arrested? For what?’ Nanami asks. Some sort of tax evasion or crooked dealing, she thinks. Something she might be embarrassed by if it gets around the school, but not something that will affect her much.

Her mother hesitates. ‘There were indecent images on his computer.’

‘That’s not illegal, is it?’ Nanami says.

 _’Nanami,'_ her mother reproves, as if Nanami should be innocent enough to believe there’s no such thing as legal porn, or possibly no such thing as porn at all. Then she continues. ‘They were of… young people. Very young.’

‘Children,’ says Nanami, hearing her voice fall like a stone into water above the buzzing in her ears. ‘I see.’

‘The charges won’t stick, dear, but —’

Nanami slams the phone down and sinks to her knees, curling up around her stomach. Something is terribly wrong. Of _course_ something is terribly wrong, her father looks like that at children. But, more than that. He’d never touched her. Unless she repressed it? No, no, she’ll panic if she thinks like that, he never touched her, she’s his _daughter_. And Touga, her terribly beautiful brother, is not his son.

‘Big brother!’ She races around the house, throwing open door after door, forgetting where she’s been and getting turned around. Kyouichi is in the garden, practicing katas with his sword, and when she runs outside still yelling he grabs her arm.

‘Nanami, what happened?’

‘I need to find my brother!’ she shouts, struggling against him.

‘Why? What’s he done?’

‘It’s not him, mother phoned. Father’s been arrested for… for child pornography and I can’t find my brother!’ She starts crying, doubled over and wild. ‘It… it’s not true, Kyouichi, is it? I’m jumping to conclusions. Just because… because of _that_ doesn’t mean that father would hurt my brother.’

Kyouichi looks as horror-struck as she feels. He slams his sword into the ground so hard it shatters, and than grabs her with a curse to shield her from the flying metal. When she looks up from his chest there’s blood running down the side of his face. He swipes it away impatiently, streaking it into his hair. ‘We have to find him.’

But Touga is gone.

* * *

In the morning there are white envelopes on the table by the door. Kyouichi throws his into a rosebush.

The news about Touga’s father is all over the school. Kyouichi doesn’t know whether that’s natural, when the parent of two of the school’s most prominent students has been arrested, but he’s damn sure the Chairman’s behind making sure someone heard in order to spread it. Thanks to Nanami’s reaction last year the whole school knows Touga was adopted and most of them are wondering.

‘It can’t be,’ he hears one girl lament. ‘Not our handsome prince.’

‘Of course it isn’t,’ says her friend. ‘A playboy like him couldn’t have a past like that.’

Kyouichi glares at anyone who looks like they might ask his opinion and hopes they take the hint, because if anyone tries to speculate to his face he’s going to backhand them across the corridor.

Touga’s not in school. Kyouichi didn’t expect him to be.

The Chairman’s car pulls up alongside him as he walks home from kendo practice. There’s no announcement, no speech, just the car pulling alongside him, the Chairman in the driver’s seat and Touga limp as a rag doll next to him, arm hanging over the passenger side door and head nearly following.

Kyouichi yanks on the handle of the passenger door and glares at the Chairman when it doesn’t open. ‘What have you done to him? Is he drugged? Let him go!’

‘He’s not drugged, simply unwilling to face the world.’ The Chairman reaches over and pulls Touga more completely inside the car. Touga doesn’t react at all. ‘Get in.’

Kyouichi wants to spit in his face and walk away. Will he see Touga again if he does? He climbs into the back furiously and folds his arms as the Chairman starts the engine.

‘Child pornography,’ Kyouichi says as the car purrs along. ‘And you still did that _fucking_ photoshoot.’ He hadn’t thought of it like that at the time. He hadn’t thought of himself as a child.

‘Touga wasn’t exactly unwilling,’ says the Chairman, reaching out with one hand to fondle Touga’s hair as the car speeds along.

‘Why is he here? Why is he with you?’

‘He came to me for protection.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘You don’t understand him at all, do you? The outside world was threatening, with its reporters and the possibility of police. Who knows what they might dig up once they start? In this place I can hold all that at bay.’

‘You’re the one that started this,’ Kyouichi growls. ‘A tip to the police, his father buys his way out, and Touga comes crawling to you. What do you even want?’

‘The co-operation of my Bride,’ says the Chairman. ‘What do you want? What do you desire?’

‘I want to kill you.’ Kyouichi is burning with rage.

The Chairman laughs. ‘You’d have to reach the Duel called Revolution for that.’

‘I will,’ Kyouichi vows. ‘I won’t even need Eternity, just your head on a stick.’ He turns on Touga, still a crumpled paper doll in his butterfly outfit. ‘And you!’ Kyouichi grabs his shoulder and shakes him. ‘Wake up and listen to me! He did this and you go crawling back to lick his hand like a whipped dog? Don’t you have any pride as a man?’

Touga’s head whips back and forth as Kyouichi shakes him. The Chairman chuckles and swings himself forward over the windscreen, the car screeches sideways and the road reads, _stop stop stop_.

* * *

The Chairman’s car screeches through the window into the living room where Nanami was trying to conjugate English verbs. Her first thought when she sees Touga limp in the passenger seat is that he’s hurt from the crash, and she’s leaning over him checking for blood when a hand touches her face. She jerks up and looks into the green eyes of the Chairman, just inches away.

‘Such a caring sister,’ says the Chairman. ‘He’s not hurt.’

Nanami jerks back. ‘Get that close again and I’ll bite you,’ she snaps.

The Chairman looks amused, like an adult watching a child have a temper tantrum. ‘Get in,’ he says.

Nanami looks at Touga, but she’s seen him in this state before. She’s not sure he’s capable of hearing her, much less responding to pleas to get out of the car. She gets in.

The car purrs along, sickeningly smooth. ‘What do you want?’ the Chairman asks. ‘What do you desire?’

Nanami can’t stop the tears welling in her eyes. ‘I wish I could undo it all,’ she says. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? That father… and I’m the daughter of his… of someone who did that to him. Someone who ordered him to treat me as a sister. No wonder he hates me, I can’t even blame him.’

‘Nanami.’ Touga’s voice is hoarse, vacant, and when she looks at him he’s turning towards her, forehead creasing in vague distress. ‘That’s not it. You’re my sister.’

She starts crying harder, that he would say that even after what her father did.

‘It’s true,’ says the Chairman. ‘By blood even.’

‘What? But then why would he —’ She turns to Touga, once again an abandoned doll, the only life in his face the shadows cast by passing streetlamps. ‘Why would you lie?’ There’s no answer. ‘Father never did anything to me,’ she whispers.

‘There was a bargain,’ says the Chairman. ‘Between your brother and your father. If Touga obeyed then you would never be hurt.’ He smiles, a wolfish grin. ‘It’s been useful, having someone used to being compliant.’

‘You —’ But Nanami doesn’t know any words bad enough.

‘Knowing this,’ begins Akio. ‘I suppose you still wish it could be undone?’

‘Is that something it can do?’ Nanami asks. ‘The power, the shining miraculous whatever?’

‘The Power of Dios can do many things.’ The Chairman stands up and vaults onto the hood of the car, laughing as the road screams _stop stop stop_.

* * *

The look at each other, Kyouichi halfway through the front door and Nanami standing in the hall where she’s run to meet him.

Their voices come together. ‘We need to Duel.’

* * *

Touga steps into the gondola. Next time the Victor will be with him, but this time there are two Victors or none, so he takes the last chance not to have them see.

He’s expecting butterflies, but bedsheets appear on the floor and start winding their way up the bars. When they touch him, tangling his feet, he gasps and crumples, landing on hands and knees as they smother him. It’s dark, he’s trapped and he can’t breath, but he doesn’t have the will to struggle. Instead he waits in mute fear until something rips his back apart and he opens his eyes to huge, flaring bedsheet wings that fall a moment later and become his cape.

When the gondola arrives he stumbles to his feet and onto the arena.

* * *

Touga’s not there when Nanami and Kyouichi arrive at the gondola. ‘Should we go up with him?’ Nanami asks.

Kyouichi shrugs. ‘He’s not here, let’s just go.’

Inside the gondola they fold their arms and lean against opposite sides.

‘You didn’t want to fight before,’ says Kyouichi.

Nanami looks at him where he stands scowling like he wants to eviscerate her. ‘I owe it to him now,’ she says. ‘He saved me when I didn’t even know it, if I save him maybe he can finally forgive me. Maybe things can change.’ She wraps her arms around herself tighter. ‘What about you?’

‘I want to kill the Chairman. I’d kill your father too if I could.’ He smiles through his scowl, turning it into a snarl, for a moment looking absolutely savage and not at all like the big brother he’s been to her.

‘A real fight, then, this time,’ says Nanami.

Kyouichi nods. ‘We both have our reasons.’

* * *

It feels more like fighting himself than Nanami. Kyouichi wants to kill someone and it takes everything he has to remember the person he wants to kill is _not_ the girl in front of him. She can’t stand up to his blows but she doesn’t try, dodging and weaving, throwing herself in to press her own attack every time she finds an angle he’s not ready to parry from. He tries to drive her to the edges, where she’d have to stand her ground, she keeps to the centre where she can move. He’ll win, though, she’s having to move constantly while he can stand and catch her blows almost effortlessly. It’s just a matter of wearing her down.

Wearing her down and not being distracted, he thinks as the car holding Touga zips past tilted at its crazy angle. Fortunately that’s just as distracting for both of them. Touga’s slumped so far out of the seat that his hand is nearly trailing on the arena floor and Kyouichi only hopes he’s wearing a seat belt. If he falls he’s going to get hurt before either of the Duelists do. He slips a little further as Kyouichi thinks it.

Screw that, Kyouichi decides. ‘Hold on,’ he says to Nanami. ‘Truce.’

Nanami actually lowers her blade. ‘Truce?’

Kyouichi pivots to the side and launches himself at the car, landing awkwardly with his feet in the back seat and his hands clutching at the side of it tipped upwards. He hauls himself out onto the upturned side with difficulty and reaches down, grabbing Touga by the back of his collar and dragging him into the car until he’s curled across both front seats.

Getting back down is the hard part. Kyouichi drops his sword because anything he does is going to be impossibly dangerous holding a live blade. Then he swings himself out, drops and rolls.

Nanami runs over as he gets to his feet, holding her sword in one hand and his in the other. For a moment he resigns himself to losing, but then she holds his sword out to him. He takes it.

‘Still a real fight?’ she asks.

‘Yes,’ he says. They still both want to win. It’s easier now to remember he doesn’t want to hurt her in the process.

* * *

Nanami still has a reason to fight, but it’s a selfish one. It always was. Kyouichi wants Touga safe as much as she does, has just proved it even in the middle of his rage. What she wants is to be the one to do the saving. _So, you want to be a Prince too?’_ She hears it in Utena’s voice, innocently inquiring.

‘Princes and princesses,’ she says, out loud, aware she must sound insane. ‘This place warps everything. I want to be his prince, I don’t want to be his prince, I want to be his princess, I don’t want that.’ Her eyes are filling with tears and she tries to shake them away before they hide an attack from her. ‘Kyouichi, do you want to be a prince?’

He bares his teeth, telegraphing an attack that she just dodges. ‘Fairy tales are Touga’s thing, I just want to win.’

Her sword swings down as he lunges past her, making him bring his own up awkwardly to parry. ‘Win what?’

They break apart. ‘Nothing,’ Kyouichi spits. ‘Nothing, there’s nothing to win.’

They throw themselves forward at the same moment, swords flashing across one another, and when they come to a panting halt on opposite sides of the arena it’s Nanami’s rose that’s scattered. The car holding Touga drifts lazily away from the wall and onto the arena, sputtering to a halt as if it’s breaking down.

Nanami puts her head in her hands and lets herself cry. ‘I’m sorry, big brother,’ she whispers through her sobs. ‘I’m sorry.’

It’s Kyouichi, though, who strokes her hair with an apology of his own.

* * *

The three of them take the gondola down together and walk through the Rose Gate. It’s only when they go to walk past the Chairman’s tower that Touga tugs on Kyouichi’s sleeve to stop him.

‘I’m staying here,’ he says, the first time Kyouichi’s heard him speak since he vanished. ‘You can too.’

‘What? Why do you want to stay _there?_ ’ Kyouichi says, horrified.

Touga doesn’t lift his head. ‘It’s on campus.’

‘No,’ says Kyouichi. ‘We can stay in your house, we can stay in my dormitory, we can stay in a fucking hotel, but we are _not_ staying there.’ He grabs Touga’s arm and pulls him towards the gate. The dormitories are even technically part of the school, if that’s what Touga wants, they are _not_ staying on the campus proper. Touga pulls back. Kyouichi growls, ‘Are you really so scared of the outside world you’d rather live with _him?_ ’ and pulls with everything he’s got. For the first time in his life he’s stronger than his friend and Touga’s feet are dragged from where he’s planted them. His face starts to fall into panic.

‘Kyouichi!’ Nanami shouts. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Please.’ Touga’s voice is small. ‘Please, Saionji-sama.’

Kyouichi remembers Anthy tugging against his hand as he dragged her to the arena and lets go suddenly enough that Touga sprawls onto the white stones of the courtyard. ‘Oh god,’ Kyouichi says, dropping down beside him. ‘I’m sorry, Touga. Nanami should have won if this is how I’m going to treat you.’

Touga sits up and wraps his arms around his knees. ‘You were angry,’ he says softly, as if that both explains and excuses it.

‘Not with you.’ Kyouichi brushes at the tears in his eyes. He’d been angry on Touga’s behalf, how had that translated to shaking him in the car and trying to drag him around now?

Nanami sniffs and says, ‘You’re both idiots,’ which is a lot better than recriminating herself for losing. ‘How are you even going to manage without me?’

‘Goodness knows,’ says Kyouichi. He stands and reaches out to help Touga up.

‘I’ll come and find you tomorrow,’ Nanami says, adding with considerable dubiousness, ‘Take care of yourselves.’

Inside the tower the Chairman is nowhere to be seen, which is good, because Kyouichi hasn’t calmed down so much he wouldn’t try to deck him. Touga leads him through to a room with two odd, semi-circular beds and a huge window.

Kyouichi sits down worldlessly on one of the beds. Touga stands, equally silent, at the window.

* * *


	11. Chapter 11

Touga puts on his uniform while Kyouichi is eating breakfast and waits patiently by the door of the tower. When Kyouichi arrives on his own way out he stops, dismayed. ‘You’re not coming to school, are you?’ he says.

‘I have to,’ Touga says.

‘Did he tell you you have to?’

‘Yes.’

Kyouichi turns and snarls, ‘Bastard,’ into the empty tower. ‘Fine, come on then,’ he adds.

Walking past the school buildings, Touga can feel the eyes looking down on him from upstairs windows and shaded passages, weighing the one they’d once accepted as a Prince. Now they gossip and wonder, seeing the child plucked off the streets behind the wealthy playboy. Is it terrible to contemplate how that child must have been hurt? Or did he want it, seeing what it’s gained him? Pity or contempt, victim or whore, princess or witch.

Every gaze stabs through him in time with the swords, they’re one and the same, the metal sings _witchwitchwitch_. His masks stripped away the swords find him suspended in a dark place, reduced to nothing but a creature existing to be hurt and hated.

Kyouichi takes his hand and he blinks, finding himself in a classroom with sun streaming through the windows. The blades still rip him apart from the inside, but while Kyouichi might not respect him anymore at least he doesn’t hate him.

‘We’re here,’ Kyouichi says. ‘Or we could go to the infirmary?’

Touga shakes his head and sits down at his desk.

* * *

Nanami walks into school in the short skirt and puffed sleeves of the Ohtori uniform. There’s pink lipstick on her lips and her hair is carefully braided and coiled into a bun. In her bag she carries a bento for three people and the photo albums she normally keeps under her bed. She stops by the crackling incinerator, feeling its heat on her hands and face, and deliberately feeds it the photo albums. Her ring nearly follows, but she’s not ready to disconnect completely. If Kyouichi ends up representing the Duelists in the Duel called Revolution she wants to be among their number. She puts it back on her finger.

‘You’re looking very grown up today, Nanami-kun,’ says the Chairman’s voice behind her, and she wishes she had thrown it in.

‘Chairman,’ she says, and turns to walk past him, heels clicking on the flagstones.

‘You should visit me sometime,’ he says. ‘You could spend time with your brother.’

She stops, still facing away from him. He waits, gaze like a tiger’s on her back. She doesn’t want to go back to that tower, to risk seeing her brother spread out beneath him the way Anthy had been. She doesn’t want leave Touga and Kyouichi to face him without her, either, for all there’s nothing she can do. ‘Perhaps,’ she says, and walks away.

* * *

Kyouichi can’t concentrate on lessons. Touga sits behind him, so absolutely still that Kyouichi finds himself straining his ears for the shift of fabric or the scuff of a shoe against the floor or _anything_ that might suggest a state other than frozen misery.

At lunchtime he hauls Touga to his feet and drags him to the kendo hall, where he slams the door and leaves them both in dimness and silence, away from all the peering and gossip. With the door closed he tugs Touga into his arms, unsure a moment later whether he’s done the right thing by giving into the always present instinct to grab at the things and people that matter to him. But Touga puts his head down on Kyouichi’s shoulder, gasps two long breaths, and looks up. His eyes are still glassy but he’s definitely present behind them.

‘Thank you,’ he says, as if Kyouichi had just passed him the soy sauce.

Kyouichi lets go slowly. ‘You’re still not quite here, are you?’

‘I haven’t been quite here since I took the position of Rose Bride. Otherwise it hurts too much.’ Touga sits down, with most of his customary grace. ‘It’s worse today.’

Kyouichi sits down and tosses his head back to get his hair out of his eyes, feeling as if he can breathe for the first time today. ‘You shouldn’t be in school. He’s got no right to treat you like this.’

Touga shrugs. ‘I sold myself to him.’

Kyouichi glares at the floor, lost for words, and twists his Rose Crest ring around his finger. ‘Why is he doing it?’ he asks, when he’s given up on finding a way to explain that the Chairman still has no right as far as Kyouichi’s concerned.

‘I told you what he said about the Prince being a memory,’ Touga says. ‘That means she’s doing what I want. Or what I think she’d approve of me wanting. He saw the outcome of your first Duel with Nanami as a rebellion, whether or not I intended it to be.’

‘How much power does the Rose Bride have?’ Kyouichi asks.

Touga smiles, but there’s no pleasure behind it. ‘A lot. But I can’t use most of it, and what I can use I use accidentally.’

* * *

Nanami stops outside the greenhouse. Touga’s not here, so where is he? The cafeteria seems unlikely.

‘Um, Nanami-sempai?’ She looks around and finds Tsuwabuki has joined her. ‘If you’re looking for Touga-sempai then he and Saionji-sempai are in the kendo hall.’

‘And why were you spying on them?’ she asks sharply

‘Because I thought you’d want to know,’ he says. ‘I may be a kid, and I don’t completely understand what everyone’s talking about, but I know something’s wrong and I want to help you.’

Nanami sighs. ‘Thank you, Tsuwabuki,’ she says, and wishes his eyes didn’t light up at her gratitude.

When she knocks on the kendo hall door, Kyouichi opens it a crack, already glaring, and then his face smooths out into sheepishness when he sees her. ‘You can come in,’ he says.

‘Good, because I brought lunch,’ she tells him, stepping past him and into the room.

Touga’s staring out of the window at the sky, but he turns to look at her when she comes in and she’s grateful for that. He holds up a hand when she starts opening up the bento. ‘I’m not hungry, Nanami.’

‘I know,’ she says. ‘But you still need to eat.’

He shakes his head again and she suspects she’s not winning this battle. While she and Kyouichi eat he stares out the window some more. ‘Nanami,’ he says, slowly. ‘Have you told anyone we’re blood relatives?’

‘Not yet,’ she says.

‘Good,’ he says. ‘Don’t.’

‘Why not? You’re my brother…’

‘If people know you’re adopted they’ll think you’re another little whore picked up off the street and trading her body for her advantages.’

‘Big brother!’ Nanami exclaims, eyes stinging.

‘If you don’t like hearing it from me, you’ll like it even less when it’s all over the school,’ Touga warns her.

‘You’re not talking about _me_ ,’ she says. ‘And you _weren’t_ … anything like that.’

‘You should leave,’ he says. Nanami thinks he means the kendo hall and she’s about to protest she’s still eating when he adds, ‘You’re done with the Duels, he wouldn’t stop you transferring. You’re strong enough for the outside world.’

‘How is that fair?’ Nanami says, words falling from her lips as fast as she thinks them, dropping like tears. ‘If I’m strong enough and you’re not it’s because you took so much damage protecting me. Even though you damaged me too, decided to use what you’d kept safe for your own advantage, and it’s not as if I don’t know that. I still don’t want to leave you in danger.’

Touga looks away. ‘That’s not what I meant. There are different kinds of strength.’

‘Sorry,’ she says, suspecting she’s embarrassed him in front of Kyouichi.

‘If you stay here, you should keep the protection of the Kiryuu name. Don’t throw it away,’ he says. ‘That’s all.’

Nanami nods, feeling she somehow owes it to him now to take his advice. ‘Okay.’

* * *

Touga wakes in the night. Kyouichi is asleep, a beam of moonlight falling on his face. There’s a beauty to him that’s more evident like this, when sleep softens him and tangled curls lie over the harsher angles of his face. Touga slips out of bed and stoops to kiss Kyouichi’s forehead before heading to the elevator.

The Chairman is star-gazing, seated on one of those familiar white couches.

‘Akio-sama,’ Touga says, his voice barely a whisper but carrying through the empty room.

Akio looks up. ‘Did you want me?’

Touga walks over and kneels at his feet. ‘I wanted to ask you something,’ he says.

‘You may ask.’

‘What are the swords?’

A hand tips his chin up, forces him to meet curious green eyes. ‘Have they been bothering you more?’

‘When people look at me. When they —’

‘— hate you,’ Akio finishes. ‘They are the million swords of human hatred. Their resentment for a Prince who did not save them and for the Witch who prevented him.’

Touga shivers and fights not to pull away. The failed Prince and the Witch. Is he both? ‘It hurts so much,’ he whispers. ‘Please, forgive me. Please, don’t make me go out there.’

Akio lets go of Touga’s face. ‘Anthy endured,’ he says.

Touga turns away, hiding behind the fall of his hair. ‘I can’t.’

‘And yet,’ says Akio. ‘You will.’

* * *

Nanami walks into school, scowling and harrassed. She’s almost used to hanging up on reporters now, but this is the first time she’s found one outside her door. Really, she’s a fourteen-year-old girl, you’d think they’d have some _shame_.

‘Nanami-san!’ someone calls and she looks up to see Wakaba flying across to meet her. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Reporters,’ Nanami says. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

‘You could stay with me,’ Wakaba says. ‘I have a spare bunk and no dorm mate, so it would be really easy.’

Nanami blinks at her, startled by the kindness, by the quickness of the offer, by the possibility of getting _away_ from the things she’s been left to deal with alone. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I’d like that. Um. How do you feel about cats?’

‘Cats are great,’ Wakaba says, grinning. ‘I used to have one when I was little, so don’t worry.’

‘I’ll bring her, then,’ says Nanami, relieved. ‘She’s been crying at every closed door in case my brother’s behind it, so it would probably do her good to be somewhere new.’

‘I’ll come and help you carry her stuff,’ Wakaba says. ‘Meet me after school.’ She darts off towards a waving friend before Nanami can thank her again.

Later, Miki stops Nanami in the corridor, to ask if there’s anything he can do. ‘I’m sorry about last year,’ he adds, fidgeting nervously with his hands as if he misses his stopwatch.

‘What for?’ Nanami asks, confused to hear sweet Miki apologise.

‘You were frantic when Touga was out of school and we all just thought he was being dramatic about losing,’ he says.

‘It’s okay,’ Nanami tells him. ‘He probably preferred you to think that, anyway.’

* * *

Kyouichi stands guard while Touga waters the roses, glaring at anyone who looks into the greenhouse.

‘It feels like you’re my bodyguard, these days,’ Touga says. ‘Do you feel like a Prince?’

‘I feel like a fool,’ says Kyouichi. Not even like a warrior, just a fool who’s in over his head, protecting the half-broken remains of his idol. At least Touga’s enough like himself today to make a comment like that.

It’s a little later, when silence has fallen between them and Kyouichi has scuffed his feet and opened his mouth again and again while Touga has ignored his fidgeting, that Kyouichi says, ‘I don’t think I ever met your father.’

He hates himself for saying it, feels it’s wrong to ask no matter how much he’s struggling to make sense of his own childhood now. Touga was his brave friend who had always wanted to go further (away from home), stay out longer (away from home), his friend who was able to see a world Kyouchi couldn’t (a world he thought was wonderful, not sordid and hurtful). How do you put together the time you’ve spent trying to catch up with someone because you thought their damage was maturity? How do you not hate yourself for both missing their pain then and feeling less admiration for them now you know?

‘No,’ says Touga. ‘He approved of you. You were from a good family. I didn’t want him to find out you were pretty, too.’

Kyouichi starts. The idea that _he_ could have been a victim, that danger had been so close, sends chills raking up his spine. ‘Touga… thank you.’

‘For what? Protecting you from the worst consequences of being my friend? Waiting until you were seventeen to sell you out to someone?’

‘Yes,’ says Kyouichi, stolidly.

Touga huffs a laugh. ‘You really are a fool.’

* * *

‘Did you watch the last Duel from the viewing platform?’ Nanami asks one night, she and Wakaba both in nightdresses with magazines spread in front of them. They’d been doing the quizzes.

‘Yes. I didn’t know who to cheer for, so I cheered for both of you,’ Wakaba says.

Nanami wraps her arms around her knees. ‘I’m worried about the next one.’

‘You don’t think Saionji-sempai will be able to win?’ Wakaba asks.

Nanami pulls a face. ‘I don’t think he’ll be able to call a truce if he needs to pull my brother out of the way of a car,’ she says.

‘Is that likely to happen again?’ Wakaba asks, earnestly worried.

Nanami curls up a little tighter. ‘I don’t know. He’s not all there sometimes.’

‘Utena got like that once,’ says Wakaba. ‘It’s why I hated him, your brother I mean, because I knew it was his fault even if I didn’t know it was because he’d won a stupid Duel. She just sat there like a doll while he started playing with her hair.’ She grins. ‘She snapped out of it when I got mad at Anthy, though.’

‘I’ve never found a way to snap my brother out of it,’ Nanami says. ‘And your Utena got her revenge.’

‘I don’t think it was meant as revenge,’ says Wakaba.

‘Of course it wasn’t,’ says Nanami. She flops over backwards onto the floor and stares at the ceiling. ‘I think the Chairman snapped him out of it last year. This year he seems to want him like that.’

‘Creepy,’ says Wakaba, sympathetically. ‘Hey, you want me to paint your nails?’

Nanami looks sideways at her and then holds out a hand regally. ‘Go ahead.’

* * *

It’s still strange for Kyouichi to sleep in the semi-circular beds in the tower, face to face with someone whose body is not alongside his own. Touga’s eyes are closed, but he doesn’t look peaceful.

‘Touga?’ Kyouichi says softly. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

Touga’s lips twitch into a semblance of a smile and his eyes open, just a glimmer below thick lashes. ‘You can ask.’

‘Why butterflies?’

‘Cabbage whites,’ says Touga, voice almost dreamy. ‘There are always a lot of them in summer, especially around my family’s farmland. The first time I tried to run away from my father and made it into a cabbage field before he caught me. There were butterflies everywhere.’

 _Butterflies everywhere._ Butterflies in the arena and butterfly shadows on the walls, like calling for help in a language no one speaks. He reaches out across the divider between them. ‘You could have said.’

Touga shakes his head but takes Kyouichi’s hand. ‘Having people know is worse than having it happen.’

* * *

Touga dreams of a bush of pink roses. This time, instead of reaching in for the nectar he tears at them, pulling off petals more than half his size until he’s aching with the strain, wings fluttering wildly to balance him. The rose leaves he can’t even tear off, he has to settle for ripping them, kicking holes in them, anything to cause damage and draw her attention.

Brown hands close around him and he crumples, grabbing at a thumb for support.

‘I forgave you last time because you had no idea what you were doing,’ Anthy says.

‘Kill me, then.’ He doesn’t doubt she’s real, or that she could. ‘Kill me, or tell me how you endured it. I can’t.’

‘You don’t have to stay with him, no matter what you promised,’ she says, more as if she feels she has a duty to say it than as if she wants to.

Touga shakes his head, tears welling in his eyes. ‘I can’t leave and I can’t bear it. Please, tell me what to do.’

‘I’m not your shoulder to cry on, little butterfly,’ says Anthy. ‘You’ve created your own problems and you’ll have to find your own way out.’

She lifts her hands and opens them, blowing as she does so. The breeze lifts him, tumbles him, tiny and fragile, until he slams back into his body.


	12. Chapter 12

‘Nanami,’ Touga says, as they walk across the courtyard after school. ‘Why don’t you come and visit while Kyouichi has kendo?’

Nanami feels the lurch in her stomach, more than just a reluctance to visit the tower. Even now, her brother is up to something. ‘All right,’ she says, anyway, loyalty and confused guilt compelling her.

Touga says, ‘You still want the Duelling cycle to continue?’ as the elevator doors open onto the floor he and Kyouichi share. It’s familiar from when Nanami lived there herself.

‘I’m done as a Duelist,’ she says.

Touga steps forward into the room. Nanami remains where she is, arms wrapped around herself. ‘There’s another role in this round,’ he tells her.

Nanami feels helpless, harrassed, and suddenly very angry. No matter what’s behind this, he has no more right to do this to her than Akio does to hurt him. ‘I can’t believe you,’ she says. ‘First you tell me to leave, then you try to pull this?’ He turns back to her, startled and slightly flushed, and Nanami realises both that he’s ashamed of himself and that it won’t make any difference. ‘If I’m going to make a deal with the devil I’ll deal with him directly,’ she says, and hits the elevator button.

The Chairman is waiting for her on one of his couches. Not even stargazing, just waiting.

Nanami clicks across the floor in her high heels, feeling very brave. ‘My brother thought you’d let me leave now I’m done with the Duels,’ she says.

‘What do you think?’ the Chairman asks, his red shirt standing out against the white, making him appear even larger and more compelling than usual.

‘I don’t think you ever let anyone go,’ says Nanami. ‘But I also wouldn’t need your permission to walk out the gate.’

The Chairman inclines his head, as if she’s scored a point. ‘Would you care for some tea?’ he asks.

‘No,’ says Nanami. She walks across the room and sits down opposite him. ‘If you want me to be Tsuwabuki’s Bride, I’m not doing it.’

‘So direct,’ says the Chairman. ‘The boy is not who I had in mind.’

‘Then who… Keiko?’ Nanami gasps. ‘But she hates me!’

‘She does,’ says the Chairman. ‘Your brother is her shining thing, but you she has hated and admired, placated and praised, sold herself to and destroyed herself for.’

Nanami’s hands clench and twist in her skirt. She sees herself, suddenly, not at the bottom of the chain the Chairman is at the top of, but just another link in it. Hurt and hurting, tormented and finding others to torment. ‘That was last year,’ she says, voice weak.

He watches her. ‘Will you do it? Wouldn’t you like to be on the arena? Then you can watch over Touga while the Victor fights.’

Nanami clasps her hands and forces herself to look up, to meet his eyes. ‘You like bargains,’ she says. ‘If you want me to do this, you’ll have to make one. I’m not here to be cajoled or misled.’

‘Oh?’ he says, voice soft. He leans forward.

‘I want my father’s arrest to stick.’

She’s surprised him, he thought she’d ask for something within Ohtori. The outside world is meant to be vague to her. ‘My influence is limited,’ he says.

‘I know. A tip to the police wouldn’t be hard, you probably had Takatsuki make it.’ Nanami twists her own ring around her finger. ‘But how many important families have sent their children here? And you never let go of anyone you’ve touched.’

‘You drive a hard bargain.’ He almost sounds respectful. ‘Agreed.’

‘Good.’ Nanami stands up and walks towards the elevator. She stops to look back over her shoulder. ‘Tell my brother I said “goodbye”.’

* * *

Kyouichi wakes up one morning to find a letter on the table by the window. ‘Why the hell do I have a letter?’ he asks. ‘I live with him.’ Not that he’s seen Akio since moving in. He’d really like to think Akio is avoiding being punched in the face. ‘I’m fighting Keiko,’ he says, after opening the letter. ‘Makes sense. Hey, Touga?’ Touga’s still curled up beneath the blankets. ‘Is she going to have a Bride? Whose sword are we using?’

‘Could I even pull yours?’ Touga asks, still not moving. ‘You don’t trust me and I don’t exactly bring out the best in you.’

‘Kozue drew Miki’s,’ says Kyouichi. ‘You drew Nanami’s and you don’t bring out the best in _her_ either.’

‘True.’

‘We could try it. Find out if you can before we’re on the arena.’ Kyouichi’s surprised to find that he _wants_ to fight with his own sword. Everyone else did last year, but he’s never even seen his own sword let alone been able to use it. Besides, he’s not quite sure how he feels about the sword of Dios. Drawing it feels exactly like drawing Touga’s, but given who Dios was it’s presumably _Akio’s_.

Touga slips out of bed and pads over. When he stops before Kyouichi there’s no haze of pain and distance in his eyes, they’re bright and narrowed slightly with intent. Touga’s always been able to reach into Kyouichi’s soul and he finds himself tensing for a well-aimed barb, for manipulation. When Touga’s warm hand lands on his breast he flinches.

Touga draws back unhurriedly. ‘We’ll use the sword of Dios then,’ he says.

‘You didn’t even try,’ Kyouichi accuses.

Touga shakes his head and won’t answer.

* * *

Keiko stands outside the Kiryuu mansion. It’s stupid, no one even lives there right now, but she can’t help remembering how it felt to stand out here in her pretty dress and watch Touga laughing and talking with people inside. A beautiful image, eternally out of reach, like the mirage he’d turned out to be. She steps forward and puts her hand against the glass, looking into the empty ballroom.

Someone steps out of the woods and she turns to find Nanami behind her.

‘I heard you refused to Duel,’ Nanami says.

Keiko scowls at her. ‘I have no reason to fight.’

‘Was my brother really your only reason to Duel? He wasn’t even what you thought he was.’

‘Which is why I’m not fighting.’ Keiko considers slapping Nanami, but remembers how hard Nanami can slap in return. ‘Leave me alone. I’m not after your brother anymore, why do you even care?’

‘Didn’t you want more than just his attention?’ Nanami pauses. ‘If your soul has not truly given up, you can hear it. The sound that runs through the Ends of the World.’

‘What?’ Keiko hears a car start nearby, too nearby, and turns her head frantically to try and see it. A moment later it screeches to a halt between her and Nanami, a red sports car with the Chairman driving. Nanami climbs into the front seat beside him and looks back challengingly. Keiko knows she should walk away, but she won’t back down in front of Nanami. She gets in.

‘What is this?’ she asks. ‘What’s _he_ doing here?’

‘He’s the Ends of the World,’ says Nanami. ‘Which is also where he’s taking us. In the meantime, let’s talk about you.’

There’s an odd feeling in the car. The Chairman is beautiful, hair streaming in the wind, and the thrum of the engine seems to fill the night with a lingering sexuality. Nanami, with her tight bun and clipped phrases, seems to consciously be resisting it, and yet she’s never looked so adult to Keiko.

‘What about me?’ Keiko asks. ‘Did you want to tell me that I’m just an insect? That Touga-san is still so far above me I have no right to feel cheated by what I gave up to chase him? That I’m cruel —’ her voice breaks ‘— because I hurt him when I didn’t know how much?’

‘We’re all cruel,’ says Nanami. ‘That’s how it is here.’ They drive past a sign reading ‘NO EXIT’ and then another identical one just as it’s about to pass out of sight. ‘We’re hurt by people and then we find others to hurt. You were one of the ones I hurt.’

‘So what are you here for? To make amends?’

The Chairman chuckles and Nanami pulls her skirt away from him fastidiously. ‘No,’ Nanami says. ‘Tell me what you want. Really.’

‘Why would I trust you with that?’

‘Because I already know. You’re the one who said we’re no different.’ Nanami leans out of the car, eyes fixed on yet another ‘NO EXIT’ sign. ‘You want someone who won’t hurt you, who will protect you from hurt, who you can protect from hurt. A way out through nothing but love. You want it all to stop.’

‘Touga-san isn’t that person. _I’m_ not that person, since I hurt even those I love,’ says Keiko, brushing a hand over her eyes to wipe away tears. ‘So tell me, what’s left for me?’

Nanami doesn’t answer for a moment, hands clenching on the side of the car, then she says, ‘A miracle.’

‘A miracle?’ It’s ridiculous but she wants one. Cinderella’s miracle of someone seeing through her rags, to the princess she _could_ be if she was given a chance. Isn’t that what Takatsuki and Tsuwabuki have been fighting for, the miraculous power that seemed less important to her before than Touga? ‘What…’

The Chairman lifts his head. ‘I’ll show the Ends of the World to you, now, as well.’ With that he grabs the edges of the windshield and flips himself over it, landing on the hood while the car carries on into the darkness.

* * *

Nanami knocks on the door to Wakaba’s dorm. She’s heard of the walk of shame, but surely you need to have actually had sex to have one of those? Yet she feels rumpled, hair windblown and skirt wrinkled with her clutching at it, and certainly ashamed enough.

‘Coming!’ Wakaba calls, cheerful even this late in the evening, but when she opens the door her cheer falls at once. ‘Nanami, where have you been? Are you all right?’ She loops an arm through Nanami’s and pulls her inside.

‘Selling someone else’s soul to the devil,’ says Nanami. ‘It’s a dirty feeling.’

‘Oh.’ Wakaba looks at her helplessly, brown eyes brimming with compassion, and then shakes herself. ‘Sit down and I’ll make us some tea.’

When she comes back it’s not just with tea but with a blanket, which she throws over Nanami.

‘I’m not cold,’ Nanami says.

‘You can take it off again, then,’ says Wakaba. ‘I just like something soft when I’m miserable. Also you can hide under it and pretend all your problems don’t exist.’

Nanami shrugs the blanket off her shoulders but pets it where it lies across her lap. The room is blurred with tears. ‘We all hurt each other,’ she says. ‘That’s what I told Keiko. But you don’t.’

‘I hurt Saionji-sempai last year,’ says Wakaba.

Nanami picks up her teacup. ‘This place. He sets us up to hurt each other because he can use our misery. I thought I was out of it once the Duelling was over, but I immediately got dragged back in and my brother would have helped him do it. I —’ she sniffles and pulls the blanket around her a bit more, because she does want to pretend this problem, no, this solution doesn’t exist. ‘If I want it to stop I might really have to leave.’

Wakaba pats her shoulder. ‘Could you?’

‘I don’t think there’s anything stopping me, except I feel like such a terrible sister, to just… just decide I don’t owe my brother enough to stay.’

‘I don’t think it’s terrible,’ says Wakaba. ‘You didn’t do anything except to be born.’ She pulls Nanami into her arms and lets Nanami curl up there and weep.

* * *

Keiko finds Kyouichi and Touga in the greenhouse. She just steps in, breaks a green rose off with an audible snap, and hands it to Kyouichi immediately.

‘After school, then,’ he says.

When she’s gone he looks at Touga, who is looking at the ground. ‘It’s going to be Nanami,’ Touga says.

‘What is?’ Kyouichi asks.

‘Keiko’s Bride. It’s going to be Nanami.’

Kyouichi stops himself mid-lunge and tells himself smacking Touga across the greenhouse isn’t the right response here. He’s not entirely sure he believes himself. ‘What the _hell_ , Touga? Haven’t you put her through enough?’

‘She dealt with the Ends of the World directly, not with me,’ he says.

Kyouichi shakes himself, wondering whether to believe that or not. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘We’ll see how that works out.’

* * *

When Nanami gets out of the gondola she’s wearing a golden dress. It’s Anthy’s old Rose Bride style, not Touga’s butterfly get up. Never having been a Bride before she wasn’t sure what to expect, and she brushes a hand over it with a grimace. She and Keiko walk to the gate and Nanami moves to stand on one side of the car there. Keiko grabs her by the front of her dress and throws her down onto the hood. ‘I know you don’t want me to win,’ she hisses. ‘But you are here _as my Bride_. Remember that.’

Nanami lies back where she’s been thrown and smiles, hoping it will hide the tears in her eyes. ‘Of course, Keiko,’ she says.

* * *

Touga stops just before they reach the gondola and says, ‘Try not to look and try not to worry.’

‘About what?’ Kyouichi asks. ‘I can’t exactly Duel with my eyes closed.’

‘About getting there,’ Touga says. ‘It just looks bad.’ He steps into the gondola and stands there, looking down so that his hair hides his face.

Kyouichi follows, realising as soon as he’s close enough that Touga is trembling. The floor starts to heave and when Kyouichi looks down there are bedsheets writhing there, starting to climb the bars. They’re winding around Touga’s feet, too, and when he pitches forward Kyouichi catches him instinctively, wrapping his arms tight around his ribcage. Touga’s eyes open wide, horrified, even as he clutches at Kyouichi for balance and the sheets start wrapping around Kyouichi’s legs as well, binding them together.

It’s dark and warm in their shared cocoon. Touga’s skin is almost feverishly hot, burning where they touch, and Kyouichi realises suddenly that they’re both naked, arms wrapped around one another, embracing like the lovers they sometimes are. When the bedsheets fall away they both arch backwards in shared pain, wings ripping through their shoulderblades to fall around them.

Touga steps back, wearing his Bride outfit, and Kyouichi finds himself wearing, almost, his Student Council uniform. A cape, black and white lined with green, falls from his shoulders. Like Touga’s it resembles stylised butterfly wings but, rather than resembling a cabbage white, Kyouichi’s has the checkered black and white markings of a siren butterfly, edged with a black frill. A similar frill falls from the bottom edge of his uniform jacket.

‘Sorry,’ Touga mouths as they reach the top, both cabbage whites and siren butterflies swarming away from them.

* * *

Nanami watches Kyouichi tip Touga back and draw his sword in one gentle motion. Drawing Keiko’s sword is clumsier, a grasping reach into her old follower’s soul and a careful but dispassionate pull. The sword that comes free is a messer, one-edged like the katana Keiko had used in the first round, but thicker and with a knife-like hilt.

As soon as Keiko takes it and charges forward Nanami finds herself in the car circling the arena, in front of the steering wheel while Touga reclines in the passenger seat. She flinches and pulls herself closer to the edge, but he just lies there like a mannequin.

‘You didn’t pull Kyouichi’s sword,’ she says.

‘He was scared of me,’ says Touga, tonelessly. ‘Much the way you are now.’

‘I hope not the way I am now,’ says Nanami.

‘No,’ says Touga. ‘Maybe not. He wanted me to try, anyway.’

‘So you’re the one that’s scared,’ says Nanami.

Touga looks at her, thoughtfully. ‘Isn’t it about time I worried about hurting him?’

* * *

Keiko fights with a fluidity she hadn’t had before. This isn’t the kendo she’d copied from Touga, it’s as if her new sword came complete with instincts for using it. Kyouichi finds himself jealous, that she gets to fight with her own soul in her hand.

She’s fierce, too, although that’s not working to her advantage. Against an opponent so much stronger than her she’d do better to stay on the defensive instead of trying to attack when he can parry everything. She catches on after a few charges that he repels without having to move his feet, backs off and starts to circle him, running around one edge of the arena so that he’s forced to run as well to stop her getting behind him. For a moment she’s running beside the car, so close to Touga and Nanami they could reach out and touch her.

Then she leaps, using speed and agility to close the distance unexpectedly and catch Kyouichi from the side. He parries her sword at an awkward angle and she kicks him in the ribs. He kicks her back, harder, and sends her rolling, but she’s up a moment later. They circle one another again. This time Kyouichi charges with a shout, but she ducks behind one of the up-ended cars emerging from the arena. His sword bites into it and she takes advantage of the moment to swing, making him jump back to dodge while still pulling his sword free and land stumbling.

Suddenly the headlights blaze, the beams of light surging into the air and then converging into one pillar of light. The Victor, or the memory of the Victor, Touga’s Prince, floats down into Kyouichi’s body and guides his sword forward in one final thrust.

The car holding Touga and Nanami screeches across the arena and knocks Keiko flat.

* * *

Nanami jumps out of the car as soon as her head stops spinning from the crash. She thinks she might throw up, but she’s not injured. She only hopes the same is true of Keiko.

‘Keiko! Keiko!’ she calls, bending down beside her and finding the layers of skirts in her way. Keiko looks battered and bruised, but not seriously hurt.

‘Leave me alone,’ Keiko groans. ‘This is your fault.’

‘I know,’ says Nanami. ‘That’s why I want to help.’

‘Leave me alone!’ This time it’s half-way between a bellow and a scream and Keiko sinks back down panting afterwards. ‘I don’t want your pity!’

Kyouichi tugs Nanami’s arm and Nanami reluctantly stands up. ‘Come on,’ he says.

The three of them enter the gondola, Nanami looking back over her shoulder at Keiko, who has pulled herself to her feet and is standing there with her arms around herself. At least she’ll be able to get herself home. By the time the gondola reaches the bottom they’re all three in their ordinary clothes.

Nanami stops just before they reach the Rose Gate and looks up at Touga and Kyouichi. ‘I have to tell you something,’ she says.

The both look at her, Touga pale and leaning on Kyouichi.

‘I am leaving,’ she says. ‘I don’t think I can do any more here. Nothing good, anyway.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ says Kyouichi.

‘It was,’ says Nanami. ‘I bargained to make father’s arrest stick in return for giving the Chairman Keiko.’

They’re both staring at her, Touga’s expression is one of startled respect.

Nanami shrugs and kicks at the flagstones. ‘If I stay here I don’t think I’m going to like who I become.’

‘You’re wise,’ Touga says. ‘When…?’

‘A few days. I need to pack. I’ll say goodbye then.’

* * *

Keiko curls up in her room and cries, for the whiplash of being persuaded to seek a miracle and losing any hope of it within twenty-four hours. Not Cinderella after all, and there’s no Prince for her. She’s just an ugly stepsister, just as mean as anyone. Could she go back to Aiko and Yuuko now? Does she want to, when their friendship had become nothing but an alliance to chase Touga?

For now there’s only emptiness and sorrow, but a nagging thought at the edge of her mind, like a new plant sprouting, says: this will not last forever. But what will you do next?

* * *

Nanami stands just inside the school gate, looking at the five people who have come to see her off.

‘Thanks for letting me stay with you Wakaba. And thanks for keeping Tora for a while, too.’ Kyouichi would make sure the cat was fed if she was moved to the tower, but none of them entirely trust the Chairman around something Touga cares about.

‘It’s no problem,’ says Wakaba. She bounces forward to hug Nanami. ‘Good luck at your new school!’

Nanami hugs back and them moves on to hug Miki quickly before he can duck away. ‘I’ll miss you, Miki. Take care of yourself and remember, if you’re already doing college work you don’t have to stay here either.’

He laughs slightly. ‘Maybe I’ll see if Kozue wants to transfer.’

‘Good. Say goodbye to her for me.’ She moves on. ‘Goodbye, Juri.’ Nanami doesn’t try to hug Juri but Juri surprises her by bending down to offer a brief hug herself.

‘Be good, Nanami,’ she says.

‘I intend to be!’ says Nanami, maybe a bit too forcefully.

‘I know,’ says Juri. ‘Remember us.’

‘Of course,’ says Nanami. ‘Goodbye, Kyouichi.’ He’s stiff when she hugs him, uncertain in front of the others, but he hugs back. ‘I’m sorry I’m leaving you to deal with everything.’

‘I’m glad you’re going,’ he says. ‘I mean…’

‘I know,’ she says. ‘Take care, okay? I’ll miss you.’

She and Touga look at one another across a distance comprised of too many things to try to sort out now, but maybe a gap doesn’t have to be filled to be bridged. Nanami leans forward and hugs him tightly, surprised when he hugs back because it’s not the way he normally hugs her. He stoops to her this time, instead of standing tall and holding her against his chest.

‘I still love you,’ she says. ‘And I hope you come and find me, one day.’

‘I hope so too,’ he says, softly. ‘Good luck, Nanami.’

Then she’s turning away from them, stepping through the gate with a determination that doesn’t stop her trembling, and heading towards the taxi waiting for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kyouichi's cape is based loosely on Mikage's butterfly and the one that lands near Touga's foot in _The Love That Blossomed In Winter_. I owe thanks to Barafubuki for helping me identify them as quite possibly siren butterflies.
> 
> Nanami took me by surprise this chapter, so I hope the result works for readers.


	13. Chapter 13

‘Hello, Mother.’ Touga’s voice drifts across the room while Kyouichi fidgets with the cards they’d been playing with. ‘Yes, I heard about Father. Yes. Do my feelings about it really matter?’ There’s a sardonic lilt to Touga’s voice. ‘If you say so. No, I won’t be taking over the company. Do you really think any of Father’s associates could take me seriously now? Ask Nanami.’ He frowns slightly at whatever he’s hearing. ‘If that’s what you think then you underestimate her. She’s a smart girl and knows how to drive a hard bargain.’ He listens again and then says, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t turn out how you hoped. Perhaps a better upbringing would have helped.’ He hangs up the mobile and drops it on his bed.

‘I wonder whether Nanami will want to run the company?’ he says, sitting down across from Kyouichi again. ‘She’d be good at it, don’t you think?’

Kyouichi can see it, Nanami organising meetings and mergers with the same focus and determination she uses to organise parties and pranks. ‘She would,’ he says, and nudges Touga’s hand of cards towards him. ‘It’s your turn.’

* * *

There are a lot of yellow roses in the greenhouse, they’re the most common colour there bar pink, and Touga is systematically stripping the petals from their blossoms and dropping them to the floor. He’s been caught by thorns enough times in the process that the carpet of yellow petals is speckled with blood.

It’s not that he wishes Nanami ill, quite the opposite. He hopes she’s doing well in the outside world. Probably she is, she’s always been stronger than him. Sometimes he hates her for that strength when it feels like it came at his expense, sometimes he’s proud, holding onto it as proof that he’s something more than a victim, that he managed to preserve something, protect someone. His feelings for Nanami have always been complicated and now they don’t have to matter to her at all.

He drops a last handful over Kyouichi where he sits carving and he looks up, lips thin with disapproval. ‘Are you done?’

Touga shakes his head and kicks at the petals on the floor. The roses had made something ache and tighten in his chest, but he doesn’t feel better for destroying them.

That night Akio kisses his hands and says, ‘She’ll come back, once she realises how harsh the world can be without her brother.’

_No, she won’t,_ Touga thinks with bitter satisfaction. _And your sister won’t either._

* * *

Kyouichi dreams of a church, of stark flashes of lightning and rumbling thunder. He and Touga are curled in a coffin together, pressed close for comfort against the storm raging outside. Another flash of lightning dazzles Kyouichi and he realises it’s a camera with Akio standing behind it. His clothes and Touga’s vanish and they stretch and sigh, unwillingly sexualised by that gaze. Beneath them, Kyouichi realises with horror, are not roses but butterflies, some of them still alive and trying to crawl with crushed wings.

‘Kyouichi, Kyouichi, wake up.’ A hand shakes his shoulder and he blinks, flinching when lightning flashes and staring wildly around the tower bedroom for Akio watching them with a camera. Touga is perched on the connection between their beds, leaning over him. ‘Are you still scared of storms?’ he asks.

Kyouichi sits up and clenches his teeth against the rumble of thunder that follows the lightning. Outside rain is falling with a hiss like white noise, obscuring the world beyond the window. The tower might be the only thing that exists and Kyouichi shivers. ‘This place is a tomb,’ he says, feeling like he can’t breath. He stumbles across the room and opens the door to the balcony, stepping out into the downpour. He can barely make out the shapes of the school buildings, nothing beyond it, and the panic tightens inside his chest and throat. The surrounding woodland is more motion than shape, branches lashing in the storm winds, but he can see it past the boundaries of the school. He thinks he can taste salt on those winds, coming from the sea, coming from somewhere else, and he clasps the balcony and leans over it gasping.

‘Now which of us is being dramatic?’ Touga asks, standing just inside the door and reaching out to tug on Kyouichi’s pyjama shirt. ‘Come back inside, you’re soaked.’

Kyouichi hesitates, but the panic has receded now and he steps back into that white room without more than a little shudder. Touga shuts the door and says, ‘I’m going to find a towel, I won’t be long.’

When Touga returns with the towels Kyoiuchi dries himself and changes into dry pyjamas. Touga then sits him on down on the floor and kneels behind him to dry his hair. ‘I should brush it too, or it will be hopelessly tangled by morning,’ he says.

‘Okay,’ Kyouichi says.

Touga is gentle, careful not to tug Kyouichi’s unruly curls, starting at the ends and working up. Kyouichi watches their shadows on the wall, unable to turn and see Touga himself, seeing Touga’s body language intent and absorbed as if he’s working on a piece of art. The motion of the brush is soothing, calming away the fears the still rumbling storm brings, and Kyouchi finds himself thinking this would be perfect if only they were somewhere else. _Where does he want to be?_ he wonders, half closing his eyes. Not his dorm room, not Touga’s mansion, not the half-remembered home of his childhood. A house, he decides. Not a big house, definitely not one that would require servants, a little house that he could take care of himself.

‘Hey, Touga?’ he says, dreamily. ‘Do you like gardening?’ In spite of taking his temper out on them today, Touga usually seems content tending the roses. Maybe it’s just a Rose Bride thing, though.

‘I’m not sure Ohtori roses count as real gardening,’ Touga says. ‘I wouldn’t mind trying it. Why?’

‘I was thinking about where I’d like to live one day.’

‘And you thought you’d take me along to take care of your garden?’

‘I thought you’d better live with someone who knows how to scrub a floor or you’d never survive,’ Kyouichi answers.

‘All right, then,’ says Touga. ‘We can have a garden. We could have a koi pond.’

‘Why a koi pond?’

‘Don’t you like fish? And you’re imagining the kind of house that would go well with one.’

Kyouichi pulls away enough to look over his shoulder. ‘How do you know what I’m imagining?’

Touga stands up just long enough to find a notepad and pencil and then he sits down beside Kyouchi and doodles a traditional Japanese house with a delicately fanned roof.

‘…Okay, yes,’ Kyouichi admits.

Touga sketches in shoji with hatched lines and scribbles in an apple tree behind the house and a couple of bushes in front. He taps the pencil to his lips and then doodles in a cat behind the shoji and his car parked in front. Kyouichi leans on his shoulder and watches pencil strokes until they lull him into sleep.

* * *

Kyouichi wakes up grumpy from sleeping on the floor, although Touga had put a pillow under his head and tucked a blanket around him. Touga shrugs it off and doesn’t mention that he’d tried and failed to move Kyouichi to the bed.

Despite his bad mood Kyouichi tears the page containing Touga’s doodle out of the notebook when he thinks Touga isn’t looking and slips it into his wallet. Touga hides a smile. Poor Kyouichi, he thinks, dreaming about the impossible, and then wonders at his own cynicism. The world contains any number of pretty, old-fashioned houses that might appeal to a boy who romanticises the past, and Kyouichi can certainly buy one if he’s so inclined. Dismissing it as mundane would make more sense than dismissing it as impossible, and yet it doesn’t feel mundane at all, only out of reach.

After school Kyouichi stops as they cross the courtyard and tips his head towards the gate. ‘I’m going to walk in the woods for a bit. Want to come?’ At Touga’s hesitation he adds. ‘I promise there are no journalists lurking in the trees.’

‘All right,’ Touga says, aware his fear is ridiculous. It still feels like plunging off a cliff to step through the gates. Off campus he’s outside Akio’s protection. All the more so since Akio would likely prefer he stayed close.

The woods are soothing, though, golden light and silver-grey trees and the sound of birdsong. This has always been their refuge, his and Kyouichi’s and he’s surprised by how similar the feeling is now. Walking through the trees, enjoying his freedom, and knowing that he’ll have to go back to a man he fears and sex he doesn’t want as much as he tells himself he does. Has he really changed so little?

Kyouichi has stopped walking, sunlight shines through the leaves onto his upturned face and dapples his hair. Out here he’s relaxed, grounded, in a way he seldom is around people. It suits him; he could be a part of the forest himself.

‘What?’ he asks, when he catches Touga looking.

Touga smiles. ‘I was just thinking you’d make a nice tree.’

Kyouichi throws a handful of dead leaves at him.

They wander through familiar places. The clearing where they usually practiced kendo is further away, but they’d explored this part of the woods on days when they didn’t have time to go as far, or just when they wanted something else to do.

Touga stops and leans back against a birch. Its leaves are just starting to turn on the lowest branches, tipped in gold that will soon turn to flame. ‘Did we have our first kiss somewhere near here?’ he wonders.

Kyouichi blushes. ‘Was it?’ he says. ‘Yours too?’

‘Yes. In that respect, at least, you were my first.’

Kyouichi puts one hand on the tree by Touga’s shoulder and it’s very easy for Touga to lean back, look alluring, and _know_ with absolute certainty that he’s about to be kissed. Kyouichi can be an aggressive person, he can be prickly and cynical around Touga and has a right to be, but when he kisses it’s with a tentative sense of wonder, as if he can’t believe that he’s allowed. Does he know that he’s beautiful, too, with his striking eyes dark with desire?

Kyouichi is slow, gentle, a honey-sweet counterpoint to the clamouring, piercing swords. It’s easy to undo the buttons of Kyouichi’s uniform jacket and trace the muscles of his chest with restless fingers, easy to press into Kyouichi’s hands like a cat being petted until fleeting, anxious touches become more sure. The swords rage in the darkness below but here, in the light, is only warmth. Touga slides his hand down Kyouichi’s back and past his waistband to cup his ass, pulling him closer. They’re both hard, Kyouichi gasps slightly as their erections brush, and then blinks dazed eyes and says, ‘We shouldn’t.’

‘Why not? You won’t hurt me.’ It’s not fair, to leave Touga as only Akio’s, craving Akio’s touch because there’s no one else.

‘It’s just not right,’ Kyouichi says. His hands are on Touga’s arms, moving to disentangle him like ivy from a tree, and it’s so hard not to cling, to look for words instead of just refusing to let go.

They trust themselves with one another so little, afraid of doing harm no matter what the other says. ‘I’ll pull your sword,’ Touga offers, ‘if you don’t stop now.’

Kyouichi’s palm lands across his face, unexpected as a thunderclap in a clear sky. For a moment Touga’s just open, startled more than hurt, and then he tastes blood on his teeth and looks away. ‘ _Don’t_ treat me like a whore,’ Kyouichi says. He turns and stalks off, footsteps heavy and hard until he’s out of sight and then speeding up, fleeting through rustling leaves like a deer.

Touga picks up his uniform jacket and wraps it around his shoulders. He hadn’t meant to antagonise this time, to stir warmth to spitting heat, but there it is. It’s done, time for him to go home.

* * *

Kyouichi’s dorm doesn’t contain that many personal possessions. Partly because he prefers a more spartan style, partly because this isn’t the first time they’ve all wound up on the floor. The evidence of his temper from last night is something he should fix, but he’s still angry enough everything would be on the floor again before he was halfway done picking it up. How _dare_ Touga respond to his refusal by trying to _buy_ him?

Kyouichi shouldn’t have hit him through. He won’t have sex with someone he owns, but hitting him’s just fine? He can hear that in Touga’s voice and it makes him angry all over again, makes him thump the empty desk. He’s sorry, and angry that he’s given Touga something to hold over him, and reluctant to face whatever Touga will say now.

He needs to get to school. If he goes early he can go around the edge of the courtyard, avoid the tower. Leave Touga to make his own way to school… except Touga’s scared to death of every morning’s gauntlet of gazes and gossip and Akio may be actively trying to break him by forcing him through it.

Kyouichi procrastinates until it’s too late to leave early and then tells himself he can still avoid the tower. Instead he walks straight over to it and opens its door. To his surprise Touga is standing just inside it, and Kyouichi can guess Touga’s been having a worse time than he has trying to pluck up courage this morning. Touga’s face lights up at the sight of him, awash with relief and gratitude. It’s more disconcerting than flattering, as if everything about their relationship has been turned upside-down in an instant, to have Touga look at him like he just handed him the sun.

‘I thought we could walk together,’ Kyouichi mutters. He can feel himself blushing.

‘Thank you,’ Touga says. He reaches out, as if to take Kyouichi’s arm, but his hand falls away before it touches. ‘I didn’t intend to suggest you should trade sex for favours.’

‘That’s what you —’

‘It’s what I said, I realise.’ Touga has regained his self-possession, although he’s still looking at Kyouichi with a warmth and wonder that hardly seem merited. ‘I was thinking that we don’t trust ourselves with one another at all. I’m not the only one wanting something and being refused, or refusing what’s freely offered, no, requested.’

‘I see.’ Kyouichi does see. Mostly he sees that he’d assumed the worst and lashed out instead of trying to understand. He reaches out to cup the cheek he’d slapped. ‘Sorry.’

Touga turns his head slightly, nuzzling into Kyouichi’s hand and kissing the palm. ‘No harm done.’

If that’s not quite true, at least it’s well meant.

* * *

There’s a sign on the door of the greenhouse when they go there to see to the roses. It reads ‘CAT INSIDE’ with a little doodle of a figure of eight cat next to it. Touga opens the greenhouse door carefully as a result and Tora still nearly gets out she comes over so fast. Not intentionally on her part, she’s looking for him not for escape, and he kneels down so she can jump into his arms and purr like an engine.

‘There’s a note here,’ Kyouichi says, ‘I decided to bring Tora-chan in today, she misses you. I’ll pick her up after school, so don’t worry. Wakaba.’

‘She’s a nice girl,’ Touga says, standing up with his arms still full of cat. Tora’s batting at his hair, tail flicking against his stomach, and still purring. He’ll have to put her down to tend the roses in a minute, but he missed her too. ‘I still have your carving of Tora-chan,’ he says. ‘It’s inside my mattress.’

‘ _Inside it?_ Why?’ Kyouichi says.

‘Paranoia, I suppose. If I was the Chairman I’d probably burn it.’

‘I wouldn’t put it past him,’ Kyouichi says, scowling.

* * *

At night they lie in their strange tower room, neither of them asleep. Kyouichi seems to be able to feel the heat and tension of Touga’s body from his own bed, a mirror of his own even though both of them lie quiet and still. He thinks about desire and trust, deserved or otherwise. About love. He slips out of bed and pads over to the low table in the corner. His ring slides easily off his finger and makes barely a clink as he sets it down. When he turns Touga’s eyes are on him, shining silver in the moonlight.

‘It doesn’t really make any difference, does it?’ Kyouichi says. To their situation, to the way Touga’s forced to depend on him.

‘What difference is there for it to make?’ Touga asks. ‘You don’t give me orders. You don’t like it when I obey you. You don’t want to be a Prince and you’re not even comfortable with rescuing me. All it means to you is a ticket into his game.’

Kyouichi walks back across the room, sits down on the edge of Touga’s bed. ‘Are we outside the game until I put it back on?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know what he’d think,’ Touga says, reaching up to pull Kyouichi down. ‘Is it good enough if I say we are?’

‘That’s the important thing,’ Kyouichi answers and lets himself fall.


	14. Chapter 14

‘It’s Tsuwabuki next,’ says Kyouichi, looking at the letter. ‘It’s going to be strange to fight a child.’

‘Don’t underestimate him too much, arrogance has been your downfall before,’ says Touga. ‘He may be young, but he’s not an innocent. He nearly killed Nanami last year.’

‘What?’ Kyouichi asks, looking at Touga’s face striped with barred shadows from the kendo hall windows. ‘When did that happen?’

‘Before you were expelled. You never know what’s going on, do you?’

‘I thought he had a crush on her. He was carrying her books around and playing servant.’ Kyouichi’s own words come back to him. _No matter how you are abused, you will always be happy to be near the one you love._ Just as well no one had been listening.

‘He did, of a sort,’ says Touga. ‘He secretly attacked her in order to save her. Silly things like dropping a flower pot on her head, but it could easily have hit her. Children don’t really understand death, do they?’

Kyouichi narrows his eyes. ‘So, were you taking tips from him?’

Touga cocks his head. ‘Tips?’

‘Set a girl up to be attacked, save her, say something cool…’ Kyouichi snorts. ‘I resent being your equivalent of a flower pot.’

‘I like to think my plan was more sophisticated.’

‘Of course you do.’ Kyouichi looks at the half-eaten bento in front of them. The eaten half was eaten by him. He pushes a riceball at Touga. ‘You should eat.’

Touga waves a hand. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘I know. You should still eat.’

Touga’s barely been eating since moving into the tower. The bones in his wrist show fine under the skin and his face is starting to go from sharp featured to gaunt. The kendo hall is still their refuge, but it’s been a while since they fought a match here.

Touga takes a bite out of a rice ball, but doesn’t seem inclined to do anything after that beyond hold it.

* * *

Touga isn’t hungry at dinner either, and he’s hoping Kyouichi won’t give in to what he knows must be a temptation and just order him to eat. He thinks he might throw it back up out of sheer anxiety and that’s a lot less dignified than romantically wasting away.

Akio entering the kitchen makes him jump, a motion he tries to hide. He’s been getting used to Akio and Kyouichi somehow never crossing paths, even though he can go from one room to another and find either of them. Akio picks up an empty bowl and starts to help himself to some rice.

‘I didn’t make any for you,’ Kyouichi snarls.

‘That’s not very polite when you’re a guest in my house,’ Akio says. Kyouichi’s hand tightens around his chopsticks, gripping them like a dagger. ‘Besides, there’s plenty left.’ Akio reaches out for some fish and the chopsticks come down with a cry, the sort Kyouichi might give in a kendo match. If Kyouichi had been holding a dagger, Akio’s hand would be pinned to the table. Instead it’s probably bruised. Akio looks up, eyes locking with Kyouichi’s. ‘Would you prefer not to be my guest?’ he asks. ‘Your dorm room is still empty.’

‘He’s right, there’s plenty of food,’ Touga says. ‘Kyouichi, there’s no need to be rude.’

Kyouichi’s gaze flicks between Akio and Touga, anger tinged with something innocently confused. Then he drops his gaze, realising that Touga still won’t leave the tower and what the cost of staying with him is. ‘Sorry,’ he mutters. ‘Help yourself.’ Then he stands up and stalks into their bedroom.

Akio picks up a piece of fish with his chopsticks and then moves it towards Touga. ‘Open wide,’ he says.

Touga obeys, then has to turn away as he forces himself to swallow. The fish feels slimy in his mouth and he doesn’t think it’s Kyouichi’s cooking. ‘May I leave?’

‘If you wish,’ Akio says, helping himself to some vegetables.

* * *

‘Do you want me to try pulling your sword?’ Touga asks, later, sitting on the edge of his bed.

Kyouichi stands up from the desk. ‘Yes.’ He doesn’t ask if Touga is sure. He doesn’t want to give him a chance to rethink.

Touga walks over and presses his hand to Kyouichi’s chest. When he looks up, eyes fierce and focused, it’s less alarming than it was before. Kyouichi still suppresses a shiver, but it’s easier to lean back, give in to the gathering warmth in his chest. The feeling as the sword comes free is disorienting, warm like a fever, but not entirely unpleasant. Touga catches him with one arm around his back and he feels the tremor there, the exertion of strength Touga no longer quite has, and pulls himself back to his feet and to consciousness.

The sword is beautiful. It’s a katana and Kyouchi can see the quality of the steel, the sharpness of its edge, its balanced, graceful shape. ‘Is that really mine?’ he asks, as if it hadn’t just come from his own chest.

Touga holds it out to him flat on both palms, presenting him with the blade, and Kyouichi closes his hand around a hilt wrapped with red and aqua silk. With the sword in his hand he can feel that it truly is his, as much a part of him as his hand. He steps away from Touga and moves through a kata, fluid and easy. ‘It’s amazing,’ he says, lowering it. ‘Thank you.’

Touga steps up behind him and reaches over to run a finger down the flat of the blade. Kyouichi, following the motion, realises there are roses etched lightly into the steel. ‘A Prince’s sword,’ Touga says.

‘No.’ Kyouichi’s refusal is immediate. ‘I’m no Prince.’

‘Why not? Don’t you want to be noble and brave?’ Touga’s hand slides back up the sword and comes to rest on Kyouichi’s wrist. ‘Don’t you want the power to save?’

‘For one thing, you’re not a Princess.’

‘Would you rather be a Princess then?’ Touga’s voice dips into slyness. ‘You might make a good one. And sometimes they can redeem monsters if they love them enough.’

‘That’s for monsters that might turn out to be Princes,’ Kyouichi snaps, meaning it as a jab in return for the princess comment. But Touga’s hand tightens briefly on his and he realises the barb’s gone deeper than he meant. ‘It’s all stupid, anyway,’ he says, letting the sword dissolve in his hand, and wishes he had words for why it’s stupid, why his association with being a Prince is always and only this stupid game. ‘I’m sick of fairy tales.’

* * *

‘What happens to the Prince?’ Touga asks, lying on one couch while Akio watches him from the other. ‘You take their sword to open the Rose Gate, but what happens to them when you do?’

Akio takes a sip of wine. ‘Do you want to know what happened to the last Victor? Or what will happen to the current one?’

Touga looks at him from under his eyelashes, stretching luxuriously against the couch as he thinks. Rebellion will be punished, but is caring about what happens to Kyouichi a rebellion? Inconvenient, perhaps. Akio is making no attempt to win Kyouichi over, which means his win condition is for Touga to take the sword but hand it over to Akio rather than opening the gate himself. No, if Touga kept the sword Akio could take it anyway. Touga’s not trying hard enough. Not making himself eat, or train, caught in survival from moment to moment. He tries to imagine duelling Akio, even at his strongest, and he can’t. Not anymore.

Akio chuckles. ‘You don’t have to be so nervous,’ he says, which mostly lets Touga know he’s doing a terrible job of hiding his fear.

‘Shouldn’t I worry about my friend?’ Touga asks.

Akio’s gaze narrows and Touga closes his eyes against the anger there. ‘Let him worry about himself,’ Akio says. ‘The Rose Bride doesn’t have to worry about anything.’

‘Just live like a bird in a cage and tend the roses,’ Touga murmurs.

‘Just that,’ Akio says softly.

‘Should the Victor worry, then?’ Touga doesn’t open his eyes.

‘If the gate opens, it won’t hurt him,’ Akio says.

* * *

Mitsuru trots along beside Shiori, wondering why she’s still with him now the student council meeting is over. It wasn’t much of a meeting, anyway, just the two of them. ‘I don’t want to,’ he says, again, assuming she’s come to persuade him.

‘Because Nanami-kun left?’ she asks.

‘Yes.’ He wanted to help her, or impress her, he’s not sure which.

‘Have you thought about going after her?’ Shiori says.

‘Of course not!’ Mitusuru says scornfully. ‘I’m just a kid.’ He clenches his fists and kicks out at a soggy cardboard box lying against one of the school buildings. Somewhere nearby a crow caws and takes off in a rattle of black feathers. ‘My parents wouldn’t let me transfer schools just for that.’

‘Have you really given up, then?’ Shiori asks. ‘If you haven’t, you can hear it.’

‘Hear it?’ But he does hear it, the sudden roar of an engine, and shrinks back against the building in case a car comes barreling across the paving stones.

‘The sound that races through the Ends of the World,’ Shiori says, looking up and smiling as if she’s welcoming someone home.

The car comes to a halt beside them, the Chairman driving. In the passenger seat sits Mari, hands clasped in her lap.

‘Mari?’ he says. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘The Chairman said you needed my help,’ she says, superior as if _of course_ he’d need her help, but with nervousness threading through it underneath.

‘I don’t need…’ Mitsuru trails off, thinking of what Shiori has said about Brides, about what Nanami had been to Keiko. ‘Where are we going, anyway?’

‘A place for adults,’ says the Chairman. ‘Why don’t you get in and find out?’

Mitsuru opens one of the rear doors of the car and climbs in, wary but excited. ‘Have you been there yet, Mari?’ he asks as the car starts driving down an unfamilair road.

‘No,’ she says. She turns around in her chair, tilting it back to bring them closer. ‘The Chairman wouldn’t be taking students there if it was bad, though, right? He said this was a student council thing.’

‘It is,’ says Mitsuru, feeling a pleasant sense of superiority. For once, between him and Mari, he’s the one who knows about things first. It makes him feel unusually well disposed towards her and he leans forward to take her hand. ‘We’re the only ones allowed to Duel, you know that, right?’

‘I didn’t think _you_ would be duelling,’ she says, but when he nearly pulls away she holds onto his hand. ‘It’s not smart, but it’s pretty brave against older students.’

He hadn’t been planning on Duelling this time, but he doesn’t want to admit that now. Not that he’d given up, not that he’d accepted he was just a kid and never going to win. The Chairman thinks he can be an adult, Mari is at least a little impressed. He wants to be an adult, wants to _really_ impress her. He imagines holding Nanami’s hand like this, explaining something to her that he knew and she didn’t, being told he’s brave. ‘I want to break into adulthood,’ he says.

The Chairman says, ‘Break the world’s shell,’ and Mitsuru wonders where he’s heard that before. It resonates with him, though.

‘Yes! The shell of childhood. Destroy everything and grow up.’

‘Then it’s time to show the Ends of the World to you, now, as well,’ says the Chairman. He swings himself forward over the windscreen. Tsuwabuki stands up, leaning forward, half to shield Mari in case of a crash and half in excitement, like craning out of a rollercoaster. The road whips by beneath them.

* * *

Tsuwabuki walks into the greenhouse and plucks a pale green rose. Along the way he looks uncertainly at the bare bushes that used to hold light yellow.

‘Here,’ he says, holding the rose out to Kyouichi where he stands watching Touga play with Tora.

Kyouichi looks away. ‘I don’t want to Duel a child,’ he says.

Tsuwabuki throws the rose at his feet. ‘You don’t have a choice,’ he says.

There’s something different about the boy today, a little haughty, a little rigid in the way he holds himself. Touga calls out to him as he turns to leave. ‘Tsuwabuki-kun? Do you understand the rumours about me now?’

Tsuwabuki turns back, confused. ‘No?’

Tora pounces on Touga’s hand, now that he’s stopped waving the spray of leaves for her, biting his thumb. He smiles and rolls her over onto her back. ‘Good.’

‘I _will_ understand,’ says Tsuwabuki. ‘When I revolutionise the world I’ll understand everything.’

‘Probably,’ Touga says. Tora pulls herself away and starts to wash.

* * *

‘Nanami would kill me if I lost this one,’ Kyouichi observes as they reach the gondola.

‘Mm,’ says Touga. ‘She was worried about Tsuwabuki’s involvement.’

They step in together and then, as the bedsheets start to twine around their feet, Touga pushes Kyouichi away, hard. It catches Kyouichi off guard and off balance, he’s winded as he hits the gondola bars, and by the time he’s on his feet again Touga’s a cocoon of bedsheets on the floor. When Kyouichi presses a hand against it it feels hard, stiff like cardboard, he can’t feel Touga at all. Just hear rasping, panting breaths from inside it like an animal caught in a trap.

The cocoon splits open, falling away to nothing at all, and Touga’s wings burst out from his shoulders, beautiful and terribly wrong at once, before settling into his cape. Kyouichi grabs him and pulls him to his feet, holding onto him now as he couldn’t before. ‘Why?’ he says.

‘Why object? Are you a masochist now?’

‘That’s… not it.’ The gondola reaches the arena and they both turn, still in one another’s arms, to look at their opponents.

They’re children. The Bride isn’t much younger than Nanami was last year, or Miki and Kozue, but seeing her and Tsuwabuki side by side they look so _young_. Even the Bride dress she’s wearing, a pale aqua colour almost the same as the school uniform, is cut shorter than usual in a way that makes it look like a little girl’s party frock.

It doesn’t help that Tsuwabuki looks faintly mystified by Touga and Kyouchi’s closeness. The girl just looks lost.

Tsuwabuki lifts his head. ‘Mari,’ he says. She puts her hand on his chest, biting her lip slightly as she does, and the two hilts that emerge are sharp as daggers in their own right, almost piercing her hand. The swords that she carefully pulls free are a pair of Chinese hook swords, with sharpened ends below the hilts and sharp blades above ending in hooks. Tsuwabuki takes them, holding them crossed in front of him.

Touga’s hand comes to rest on Kyouichi’s chest and pulls, strangely easy now Kyouichi knows what to expect. A swooning feeling, then a sword being pressed into his hand as he lifts himself back to his feet. A beautiful blade resting in his hand as Touga steps away.

Kyouichi charges forward, intending to finish it quickly, and Tsuwabuki catches his katana on one sword, letting it slide off to the side, while he brings up the other to hook at the rose. Kyouchi steps back, out of range, and uses his superior reach to attack repeatedly while Tsuwabuki can’t reach him to strike back. Tsuwabuki jumps backwards, buying himself some time, and hooks the ends of the swords together. He waves the result like a flail, forcing Kyouichi to dodge the sharp hilt-end. Then he catches the sword in his hand again, unhooks it from the other and charges forward. Kyouichi manages to parry both blades with one broad sweep and then he and Tsuwabuki both step back to watch one another for an opening.

Kyouichi might be fighting a child, but Tsuwabuki is also a ruthless and unpredictable opponent. For the first time he understands what Touga’s warning meant.

* * *

Touga remains on the arena this time, instead of finding himself in the circling car, and so does the girl. He walks over to her, where she stands watching, and says, ‘You don’t know what’s going on at all, do you?’

She shakes her head. ‘Is this some kind of trick?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then they won’t be hurt?’ she says, relieved.

‘Tricks can still hurt,’ Touga says. ‘They could die here. But they won’t, Kyouichi’s a better swordsman than that.’

She looks up at him, like he’s an adult and can make sense of this for her. ‘I thought I was helping Mitsuru-kun.’

‘I know,’ Touga tells her. ‘That was a trick too.’

* * *

Kyouichi slams the flat of his sword into Tsuwabuki’s blades hard enough to knock the boy off his feet. As he falls Tsuwabuki crosses the swords over his rose, blocking it, and lands with one of those vicious hooks a bare inch from his eye. Kyouichi snarls but backs off, afraid of what might happen if he doesn’t give Tsuwabuki space to stand. _He_ hadn’t been ruthless as a child. Fierce in fights where the blades were bamboo, but otherwise soft and anxious. He doesn’t remember this reckless disregard for his own death or his opponent’s. Touga had it, perhaps… no, Touga still does.

‘Do you think this makes you grown up?’ he shouts at Tsuwabuki. ‘Lashing out at everything like a toddler?’

Kyouichi hadn’t had it as a child, but last year, when he’d thought that it didn’t matter whether you lived or died as long as the rose on your chest remained, he’d found it. He’d hit out at a cruel and confusing world until losing had been a relief.

‘Adults fight their way into adulthood,’ Tsuwabuki shouts back. ‘If you win against them, you become someone worth listening to, an adult yourself.’

He lunges forward, one blade coming up to ward off Kyouichi’s sword, the other aiming for his rose. A pillar of light rises as Kyouichi dodges, and he and the Victor move together as he grabs Tsuwabuki’s arm and spins him around to slice off his rose.

Tsuwabuki’s swords vanish and Kyouichi is left holding onto a child forcing back tears. He is not good with children, but he feels sympathy for this one. ‘Listen,’ he says. ‘Sometimes you grow up more by losing. Especially if you were just trying to catch up with someone.’

‘What do you know?’ Tsuwabuki says. ‘You won.’

‘This year,’ Kyouichi says. He lets go of Tsuwabuki’s arm, watching in concern as the boy strides off towards the gondola without even looking at his Bride.

‘Do you wish you’d lost?’ Touga asks, by Kyouichi’s ear.

‘Of course not.’ This year is different.

* * *

Mitsuru enters the music room nervously, but Miki looks up at him and smiles. Mitsuru holds the stopwatch out to him. ‘I’m not on the student council any longer,’ he says.

Miki takes it solemnly. ‘I didn’t realise what the student council would be doing when I got you involved,’ he says. ‘Sorry.’

Mitsuru scowls, feeling he’s being treated like a child. ‘I did what I wanted to do,’ he says.

Miki idly plays a few chords. ‘So what do you want to do now?’ he asks.

Mitsuru shrugs. Last year he’d been looking after Nanami’s schedule, this year he’s been keeping minutes and doing paperwork for the student council. He feels lost with someone or something to devote his time to. ‘Kid stuff’s boring,’ he says.

‘Want to try learning the piano?’ Miki asks. ‘You might not like it, but it’s not boring.’

Mitsuru considers. It’s something that can keep someone as smart as Miki occupied. ‘Okay,’ he says, joining Miki on the stall. ‘Where do I start?’

* * *

Touga hangs in the dark, vague place between waking and sleeping. At first it seems comforting, but the swords churn here, shrieking metal on metal, and he wants to retreat into either waking or true sleep. He needs to sleep, though, only if he can remember himself while doing so. He spins around in the darkness, pinioned by blades, until he feels a breeze on his face. Moving towards it, he both falls and flies.

There’s no rosebush this time, just a figure in a pink dress with long purple hair trailing behind her, walking away from him. The wind blows her hair back and forces him to flutter madly against it, pressing forward while his back aches with the strain on his wings. Finally he reaches her and grabs a lock of her hair, anchoring himself beside her ear.

Her hand comes up to brush him away, like a stray leaf caught there, and he says, ‘What happens to the Victor?’ in a rush.

She stops, hand arrested mid-motion, and sighs. ‘Who is the Victor?’

‘Kyouichi,’ he says.

‘Not your sister, then.’ She actually looks relieved, as much as he can read her expression from his awkward perch. ‘Good.’

‘Nanami’s not even in Ohtori any longer,’ he says, putting his feet down on her shoulder to rest. He thought she and Nanami hated one another, but she looks pleased to hear that, too. ‘I know you don’t care about Kyouichi,’ he says. ‘Or me. But what happens? Akio-sama said he’d use Kyouichi’s sword to open the Rose Gate, that it wouldn’t hurt him if it opened, but he didn’t say what will happen if it doesn’t open.’

‘If it doesn’t open, the sword will break.’

Touga shivers. Around them the wind picks up again, lifting him from her shoulder so that he’s hanging on by her hair once more. ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I won’t bother you again.’

He lets go, lets the wind whip him home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe there's only one member of the student council left to fight?


	15. Chapter 15

Juri is sitting by the fountain, trying to remember the encounter she’d had with the Victor here. It had been night then, too, and she’d been wearing the same gown. The Victor had commented on it. It’s still hazy, but she knows it was real. Juri had tried to pull the Victor’s ring off, and now as she remembers it it’s overlayed with Ruka grabbing her locket. She’d seen it then for the same thing, shouted about the Victor only being noble for the sake of a man as if that was the problem, as if the problem wasn’t being noble for the love of someone you didn’t even know.

The sound of footsteps makes her look up as Touga enters the paved area around the fountain. He’s dressed in black, making him look even paler than he actually is, a creature of black and white and the sweep of blood red.

‘I thought you only haunted the academy these days,’ Juri says.

‘Even ghosts need a change of scene sometimes. Besides, I need to speak to you.’

‘Now that’s ominous,’ Juri says, as if naming the feeling and mocking it will make it less real. She knows who Touga belongs to.

‘Shiori will be Duelling next.’

Juri stops her hand before it can move up to touch her empty chest. Shiori is a familiar pang. ‘Are you suggesting she’ll need my help? I don’t even know if winning would be a good thing for her.’

‘I’m not suggesting anything so selfless.’ He steps closer. ‘She has feelings for you, Juri.’

‘No, she doesn’t. She only resented mine.’

‘She had no interest in me,’ Touga says, leaning over her. ‘She never touched me, not like that. But she always made sure I was watching her fence, so that you would see that she had me. No matter how much she hates it, you’re the only one that ever mattered to her.’

‘It’s not true.’ If it is true, then Juri knows she’ll lose herself again, all her hard won progress in pulling away falling to nothing. How, knowing the pain of rejection, could she reject Shiori’s feelings?

‘Isn’t it?’ His cool certainty reminds her of Ruka, but Ruka inverted, trying to imprison her again, not free her with his manipulation.

‘Even if it is, how would being her Bride change anything?’

‘These Duels bring out things in us that we didn’t want to know about ourselves. You know what it means to let someone touch your heart, Juri.’

‘Leave me alone, Touga.’ She does not need this hope like a chain around her neck.

Touga nods. ‘Think about it,’ he says.

* * *

When Kyouichi comes up to the tower room after clearing away dinner the next day, Touga turns from where he’s standing by the window to give him an oddly sad smile. Kyouichi can see in him all the frailty they’ve both been trying to ignore, but more than that, something in this moment seems to have curbed even his sharp tongue and ruthless mind leaving him softened into something more human. More vulnerable. Under other circumstances it would be hopeful, to see Touga unfreeze even a little, but this is no place for any kind of softness.

‘I need to talk to you,’ Touga says.

‘Of course.’ Kyouichi’s says softly. He shuts the door behind him and walks over to stand beside the window, mirroring Touga’s pose.

‘The power to revolutionise the world is behind a gate that only the sword of a true Prince can open. That’s why the Duels exist, to forge that sword in the heart of a Duelist.’

‘So that’s why you want me to be a Prince. So I can open this gate for you.’ Despite his irritation with the whole idea of princes, he’s hurt that Touga’s reason for seeing him as one is so pragmatic.

‘You say that as if you’d just give me whatever’s behind it,’ Touga says. ‘Don’t you want eternity?’

‘No.’

‘Not even eternal friendship?’

‘I think maybe eternity’s a cruel thing,’ Kyouichi says, feeling for the words as he says them. ‘I spent so long wishing we could go back to the way we were as children and stay like that, but I didn’t even know what it had been like for you. And even if it hadn’t been, isn’t wishing someone could stay with you forever, wishing their feelings would never change, just forcing them into a coffin?’

‘…I see.’ Touga turns slightly away from the window as if he doesn’t want to meet the eyes of his own reflection. ‘I did think that you might give me the sword, if I asked, even to begin with.’

‘So that’s why you started this.’ It shouldn’t be flattering, of all things, for Touga to think that. To trust him, even in this warped manner.

‘The Ends of the World wants your sword, too.’

‘Of course. Would you give it to him?’

Touga shakes his head. ‘I couldn’t stop him taking it. Not now.’

‘If you gave it to me —’

‘You can’t defeat him. I don’t even know if he can die.’

‘I told him I wanted to kill him. He said if I reached the Duel called Revolution I’d have a chance.’

‘Do you really think he’s someone who would risk himself like that?’

Kyouichi hits the glass with the side of his hand, not hard, more frustrated than angry. ‘Then what can I do?’

‘Lose. There’s still one more Duel. You don’t have to be the one to reach Revolution.’

‘Are you seriously telling me to abandon you? To _this?_ ’ Kyouichi’s angry now and unsure why. Shouldn’t Touga’s attempt to free him be a good thing? Better than being used, being dragged down alongside his friend? And yet, it hurts.

‘It’s only until spring.’ Touga’s voice is almost casual, but his hand trembles and his fingernails click against the glass.

Kyouichi stares. ‘What?’

‘The bargain I made with him. It was for a year. If no one frees me beforehand, that’s when I can leave.’

Kyouichi slams his hands down on either side of Touga’s head, pushing him up against the window. ‘You let us think you’d bargained your life away!’

‘Your strength as a Duelist, your nobility, was always going to be in your loyalty. Even if you deny it, you’ve given up so much to save me…’

‘And all of it wasted!’ They’re so close Kyouichi could kiss Touga. Or bite him. Touga is unafraid, no more concerned than if Kyouichi’s arms were embracing him. He’ll half-flinch from Akio’s caress but Kyouichi’s rage is nothing to him.

‘It’s like you said. Not all monsters turn out to be Princes. I’m sorry. For everything.’ Touga really does sound like he means everything and it’s more sad than gratifying to have him apologise for the entirety of their relationship, as if it was something Kyouichi had had done to him.

‘I don’t want an apology,’ Kyouichi grits out.

‘Then what do you want? Warning you now is the closest I can come to undoing it.’

‘I’m not angry because I was in danger. Do you have any idea — any idea at all — how afraid for you I’ve been?’ How afraid he still is, if he’s honest, even knowing this. Touga’s fading like a plucked flower. Would he make it through the winter? And even if he does, will that be enough? ‘Would you really leave?’ Kyouichi asks, no longer shouting, voice low and intense. ‘If he tells you you have to leave Ohtori for the outside world or give him another year… and another…’

‘It’s not your concern,’ says Touga. ‘It doesn’t matter if you win me freedom or leave me to wait for it, whether I’m able to accept it or not will have nothing to do with you.’

‘So there’s nothing I can do and I’m no use to you.’ It’s not that he doesn’t recognise the manipulation, or even the good intentions behind it, he just also recognises the implicit threat. Touga has decided he should leave him and is willing to hurt him to make it happen, trying to argue will only get him escalation.

‘Yes.’

‘Fine.’ He walks towards the elevator and stops a few steps before he reaches it. ‘I’ll see you in school tomorrow.’

Touga doesn’t answer.

* * *

Touga waits until the elevator is gone, then kneels beside his bed and feels along the seam under his mattress for the cut stitches. The cat charm comes easily to his hand and he pulls it free with a quick glance at the door. He runs the pad of his thumb over the Rose Crest engraved on the key and wonders whether he ever will get out of here. If he’s never going to leave he should find poor Tora a new home, or perhaps ask Wakaba whether she wants a cat rather than being willing to do someone a favour by looking after one.

This tower will never be a safe place for anything he loves.

Tears sting but don’t fall. He won’t cry, not for falling into the trap he’s set himself. Not for losing Kyouichi who he never, really, had a right to keep. To twice realise what he feels is love by regretting everything he’s done for the past year probably means there’s something seriously wrong with him.

Maybe Kyouichi will buy the house he imagined, maybe he’ll have a job that lets him pay for it and carve in his free time. On the weekends he’ll practice kendo and sometimes go camping, and not have many friends but be devoted to the few he makes. Maybe he’ll be safe, out there, from Ohtori, from Akio, and most of all from Touga.

* * *

Kyouichi picks Touga up from the tower to walk to school and everything seems normal — if Touga being silent and frozen throughout classes can ever really be called normal — until lunchtime. They’re on their way to the greenhouse when Touga says, ‘You should go somewhere else. I don’t need you to stand around staring at me.’

Kyouichi can’t keep the hurt from his face, but he nods and walks off towards the field. He finds an out of the way tree to sit under and tears seedheads out of the grass with suppressed fury. Wakaba is having lunch with a group of girls nearby and he finds himself watching her without really intending to, the way her large energetic gestures are matched easily by one of her friends. The others are watching both of them fondly, commenting on whatever the story is every so often.

Wakaba looks up as she demonstrates a tennis stroke with her clasped hands and sees him. She waves and smiles, while he ducks his head, abashed at being caught, and gives an awkward half-wave in return.

‘Hey,’ she says, and he looks up to find her standing over him, her friends wandering away with empty bentos.

‘You could have gone with your friends,’ he says. ‘You looked like you were having fun.’

‘I know, but I haven’t seen you for a while.’ She plops down next to him. ‘You’re nearly always with Touga.’

Kyouichi scowls. ‘He didn’t want me around today.’

‘Did you two have a fight?’

‘No, not a fight.’ He’s not sure what it was. ‘I found out he’s only the Rose Bride until spring. Even if no one wins him.’

‘That’s good though, isn’t it?’

It is good, or it should be, it’s just… ‘I thought he needed me,’ Kyouichi mutters. He didn’t want to be a Prince, he’s been resisting the whole idea, but maybe he did want to be the one to save Touga.

Wakaba pats his knee. ‘I know that feeling,’ she says.

‘I don’t _want_ to leave him,’ Kyouichi says, turning away hurriedly, knowing that his face is blotchy red and his eyes filling with tears. ‘But he doesn’t care what I want. I love him and he just thinks I’m stupid for feeling that way.’

‘He can’t make you leave him, can he?’ Wakaba asks.

Kyouichi huffs. ‘He can make it really miserable to stay.’ He scrubs a hand across his face. ‘Anyway, he’s right. There’s nothing _I_ can do.’

* * *

It’s hard for Juri to concentrate on fencing that afternoon. Until now she’s been able to treat Shiori like any other student, but today it feels like they’re puppets with their strings tangled. Every time Shiori moves, she feels the tug in her own limbs.

When she calls, ‘Next,’ and Shiori steps forward she still expects to be able to dispatch her quickly. So far, no matter how much Shiori’s improved, she hasn’t reached the point she could give Juri a challenge.

Today, though, there’s a light in Shiori’s eyes as she steps forward, and Juri’s blade can’t land. Shiori doesn’t fight like Juri does, with forthright elegance, but like a dancer or a kitten pouncing, almost winding around Juri’s blade. Even in this she touches the world lightly, with that strange grace that comes with not being able to take herself fully seriously. For Shiori any impact she has is almost accidental, when she expects to have none.

They move apart, they move together, and Juri suppresses a blush when she realises that Shiori must be as aware of her body as she is of Shiori’s, to fight like this. Curse Touga, if he can be more cursed than he already is, for bringing these feelings back to the surface.

Juri parries, moves fluidly into a lunge, and hits Shiori’s chest where her rose would have been. Shiori’s expression is, for a moment, pure hurt and frustration and then she laughs and moves aside for the next.

Juri waits for her after practice. ‘You’ve improved a lot,’ she says. ‘Beyond anything anyone could expect in one year.’

Shiori smiles at the praise. ‘I still want to defeat you one day, Juri. Does that sound awful of me?’

‘It’s a competitive sport,’ says Juri, brusquely.

‘Juri…’ Shiori says, drawing out her name. ‘You still mean a lot to me, you know?’

‘I’ll always remember our friendship fondly,’ Juri says. She can’t look at Shiori, any more than she could force herself to look into a bright light.

‘I know it was more than that for you,’ Shiori says, and Juri feels as if she might fall, as if her heart might burst, just to hear it _acknowledged_. ‘Your feelings… I still don’t know if I can accept them. But that doesn’t change how good you were to me.’ Shiori touches Juri’s hand and Juri jerks away, not intending to reject, just startled. ‘I’ll see you later, Juri.’ Then Shiori’s feet patter away and Juri realises she didn’t say anything, didn’t thank her or acknowledge her at all.

Outside a red car is idling beside the building. Juri stops.

Akio meets her gaze from where he sits at the steering wheel. ‘Are you ready to see the Ends of the World?’ he asks.

‘I’ve seen it,’ says Juri. ‘It wasn’t that great.’

‘Doesn’t every place depend on who you see it with?’ Akio says. When Juri only stares at him he continues. ‘If you wish to see it again, come to the tower tomorrow after school.’

‘So, the letter will be sent tomorrow,’ Juri answers. ‘Will she really win some mystical power if she wins the match? Or was that all an illusion?’

‘Does it matter whether it’s an illusion if it’s real to the one experiencing it? Aren’t all feelings only illusions, since they exist inside us?’

‘No,’ says Juri. ‘Feelings can be very real.’ She turns and walks away, shaking slightly. Tomorrow.

* * *

Akio sits in front of a desk, pen scratching over paperwork. Touga enters quietly and stands just inside the door, hands clasped in front of him.

‘Are you angry with me?’ Akio asks, without looking up.

‘No,’ Touga says. ‘I can’t blame you for the choices I made. I knew the nature of the game from the beginning.’

Akio’s pen stills. ‘Have you come to see whether I’m angry with you, then, for driving our Prince away this late in the game?’

Touga bows his head, awaiting punishment.

Akio chuckles. ‘Do you really think, little witch, that he’ll be that easy to push away? The Duel hasn’t even been fought.’


	16. Chapter 16

Kyouichi goes into town at lunch and, after eating in his favourite tea shop, he finds a phone and calls Nanami.

‘What is it?’ she asks, when her roommate has fetched her. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m okay. What about you?’

‘I’m good. School’s going well.’ She clears her throat. ‘What happened?’

‘Touga told me his deal with Akio only lasts until spring. Then he’s free to leave.’

‘That _jerk_ ,’ says Nanami, high pitched and indignant. ‘He could have told me once I was leaving anyway, then I wouldn’t have felt so bad about it. Does that mean he’s going to be okay?’

‘It…’ Kyouichi hesitates.

‘Don’t you dare lie to me, Kyouichi,’ Nanami says. ‘If it’s something to worry about then I’ll worry.’

‘He’s not well,’ Kyouichi says, stumbling over the words. ‘He wasn’t eating properly even before you left and it’s getting worse. I don’t think he… I don’t know whether he really believes he can get out of here. I’m not sure he’ll try. He’s trying to push me away by telling me this.’

Nanami sighs. ‘I see.’

‘And he told me my sword could be broken during the final Duel, that’s why he wants me gone.’

There’s silence on the other end of the phone and then Nanami says, ‘Did you tell Miki?’

‘What, why? Miki’s just a kid.’

‘Miki’s the one who’s been keeping track of what we know about that stuff, swords and magic and everything,’ Nanami says, then continues a bit more sharply, ‘Anyway, he’s the same age as me and he’s smart.’

‘Are you saying I’m not?’ Kyouichi asks.

‘Are you saying you _are?_ ’

‘Brat,’ Kyouichi mutters. ‘Fine, I’ll talk to Miki.’

‘Good. I’ll talk to my brother.’

‘You don’t have to,’ Kyouichi says quickly.

‘I’m still going to. Bye, Kyouichi.’

‘Bye,’ he says, and hears the click of the phone on her end. He puts the receiver down feeling oddly reassured.

It doesn’t take long for Kyouichi to find Miki. He’s in the library with paper spread out across a table while Juri leans over him.

‘What are you two doing?’ Kyouichi asks.

‘We’re trying to figure out what happens in the Duel called Revolution,’ Miki says.

‘Funny,’ says Kyouichi, relishing the drama of the moment. ‘I was just coming to tell you that.’

They both look at him. ‘Tell me,’ Juri says.

‘The Victor’s sword is used to open a gate. But if it fails then the sword breaks.’

Both of them go pale. ‘Does that mean the previous Victor opened it?’ Miki asks.

‘What’s behind it?’ Juri asks.

‘I don’t know,’ says Kyouichi. ‘Touga thinks I’m going to get my sword broken. He wants me to throw the match against Shiori.’

Juri stands up straight, radiating the kind of hauteur that has most of the staff terrified of her. ‘He put some effort into convincing me to be Shiori’s Bride. I thought that was just his job now.’

Miki starts scribbling down notes. ‘Are you going to throw it?’ he asks.

‘No!’ Kyouichi hadn’t realised that would be his answer until he was asked, and now he’s said it it seems obvious. In the end, even if it’s wrong or stupid, he’d rather suffer alongside Touga than leave him to suffer alone. ‘I’m not just going to leave him! But if he’s against me I don’t know if I can win. He doesn’t use it properly, but the Bride’s got a great deal of power.’

‘How do you know he doesn’t use it properly?’ Miki asks.

‘It’s obvious… everything happens by accident.’

‘And it should happen on purpose?’ Juri asks.

‘Neither of you were ever Brides,’ Kyouichi realises. ‘It’s… you can feel it. The arena. Like feeling your sword… even swords that aren’t your heart… during a match. You can make things happen. I could send all the cars at the Victor and I think I summoned Touga’s motorbike… although I didn’t really do that on purpose.’

‘You sent cars at the Victor,’ says Juri flatly.

‘We needed to defeat her to protect her from the Chairman,’ Kyouichi defends himself.

‘It’s very like you, Saionji-sempai, to throw cars at someone you’re trying to help,’ says Miki.

Kyouichi folds his arms with a huff.

‘It might explain Ruka,’ Juri says, more thoughtfully. ‘How he could give me a miracle by being my Bride.’ She reaches up to touch the side of her neck. ‘If I’m Shiori’s Bride, can I stop her from winning?’

‘As much as Touga can stop me from winning,’ says Kyouichi.

‘I wondered if it would be better to refuse,’ Juri says. ‘If winning was a danger to the Victor. But if Touga is on her side, or at least wishes her to win, she might need me to force her to lose.’

‘I’d appreciate it,’ Kyouichi says.

‘Would you? It looks like I’d be throwing you to the wolves,’ Juri says.

‘I can handle it,’ Kyouichi bites out.

Juri looks at him with eyes that are definitely judging him for not having a plan and then she says, ‘If I’m going to do this I’d better go. I’m meant to meet the Chairman by the tower.’

Kyouichi considers going back to the tower room for the night, just to prove he hasn’t been driven off. But he’s afraid Touga would know everything just by looking at him, so instead he heads back to his dorm room.

* * *

Shiori almost dances on her way to the fountain. Excitement rises up inside her like anticipating a birthday present, Juri all wrapped up and ready for her. She hops up onto the rim of the fountain, walking a few steps along it like a little girl. ‘Since I have not given up,’ she says, and she hasn’t. Despite years of not being good enough, being in Juri’s shadow, she’s never given up. ‘I can hear it. The sound that races through the Ends of the World.’

The car draws up beside her with a screech. Juri is in the back seat, trying to look haughtily straight ahead, but her eyes betray her. Shiori catches that furtive look and laughs softly. ‘Hello, Juri-san,’ she says.

‘Shiori,’ Juri says. She turns away properly now, and Shiori hates it. It’s familiar coldness, even if it hides heat.

‘Your ride awaits, student council president,’ the Ends of the World says.

Shiori jumps down and opens the back door, climbing in next to Juri. She leans against her slightly as the car starts to move and Juri tenses. ‘Ah, Juri-san, always so cold,’ Shiori says. ‘Tsuchiya-sempai wasn’t so cold when we did this.’

‘No, he saved that for afterwards,’ Juri says. ‘You didn’t listen to my warning then, I don’t suppose you’ll listen to it now.’

Shiori pulls away. ‘Of course, Juri-san always knows best. Even now, when you’ve agreed to be my Bride, you can’t trust Shiori to make her own decisions.’

‘It’s dangerous.’ Juri looks warily at their silent driver. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

‘Everything worth doing is dangerous,’ Shiori says. ‘Otherwise you never leave the shadows. Or you wrap yourself in ice to protect your heart, don’t you, Juri-san?’

‘You don’t want my heart, Shiori,’ Juri bites out. ‘Except as a trophy the way you want everything else.’

‘I hate you!’ Shiori hisses. ‘You’re ruining this. Why come if you don’t care?’

Juri’s expression is pained. ‘I care. I’m just not playing this game.’

‘Aren’t you?’ Shiori says, recovering her sweetness. ‘Is there another game to play?’ This time she leans in far enough that Juri has no escape unless she shoves her away. Juri’s eyes go wide, like a rodent in front of a snake.

The Ends of the World laughs. ‘Doesn’t the throb of the engine feel good?’ he asks.

‘No,’ says Juri. ‘I don’t like it.’

He swings himself forward, landing on the hood of the car as the engine throbs on and Shiori nestles against Juri with a sigh.

* * *

Touga picks up his phone expecting Kyouichi. Instead Nanami’s voice rings in his ear. ‘I’m not happy with you,’ she says.

‘Hello, Nanami,’ he says, feeling his throat tighten. ‘Did Kyouichi call you?’

‘Yes. You jerk. You could have told me there was a time limit, I wouldn’t have felt so bad about leaving.’

‘You would have told Kyouichi.’

‘You bet I would!’

‘You sound well.’ She does, full of energy and life. Touga closes his eyes and tries to imagine where she is. A dorm room for two, books and magazines spread around the place untidily. A dress straggling over the end of a bed.

‘You don’t,’ she says. ‘Kyouichi says you’re not eating. And don’t change the subject.’

‘I thought Kyouichi telling tales on me already was the subject?’ he says. He imagines her as if he’s looking down into the room, the way she’d be holding the phone with its cord stretched out so she can lie on her stomach on the bed. Her hair’s shorter than it was, although she still has her braid.

‘Don’t even think about being mad at him for talking to me.’ She turns over and looks up, meeting his eyes. ‘You owe me an — huh.’

‘What?’ He feels fuzzy, staring down at her from the ceiling while talking into a phone miles from her.

‘I thought there was a moth flying around the light, but it’s a butterfly… _Don’t you dare hang up I’m not done with you._ ’

Touga doesn’t hang up, but he wrenches his mind away from Nanami’s room and forces himself to visualise nothing but blackness. ‘If talking to me means you’re still connected to Ohtori, I really should hang up,’ he says.

‘It might be a real one,’ Nanami says. ‘Anyway, butterflies are your thing, not his.’

‘Does that really make so much difference?’

‘Of course! You’re not even trying to reach out for me, you just spill magic everywhere.’

‘I hate that,’ he admits. ‘I always had control before, at least over what I was doing, but I can’t seem to do anything with magic except…’ Except spill trauma over everything. ‘You’re right, I don’t mean to reach for you. I’m glad you’re out.’

‘Apologise for lying to get me involved in the first place.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Good.’

Touga laughs, and then at the indignant sound on the other end he says, ‘Sorry, sorry, I am taking you seriously. You just sound so grown up. Is school treating you well?’

‘I’m enjoying it, mostly,’ she says. ‘I made some friends, and I made some enemies. I haven’t changed as much as I hoped, but the people who like me actually like _me_ instead of hoping to get close to you. I joined the cooking club and the fashion club. The teachers are _way_ more involved than the ones in Ohtori. I got in trouble for cheating on an English exam, but then the English teacher helped me with the stuff I was struggling with, so it kind of worked out even if I got a lot of detention. My roommate’s nice, but she thinks I’m a slob. It’s okay.’

‘I’m glad,’ he says. ‘No rumours, then?’

‘…Some,’ she says, quiet and resigned. ‘Not as much as in Ohtori, with no one spreading it around deliberately, but people did hear about our family. Really, I know you think it would be worse out here, but I don’t think it would be. Not even for you.’

‘Perhaps.’ He doesn’t believe it, but he’s glad it’s proving that way for her.

She sighs. ‘I need to get some sleep. Goodnight, big brother.’

‘Goodnight, Nanami.’

* * *

This time it’s Shiori who catches Kyouichi before he’s reached the school to throw a rose at his feet.

Kyouichi picks it up and nods to her. ‘After school, then,’ he says.

* * *

Touga and Kyouichi step into the gondola together, Touga already tensing to push them apart. This time, though, Kyouchi gets his arms around him before he can and when the bedsheets wind up their legs it’s around both of them together.

‘Stop trying to push me away,’ Kyouichi whispers against Touga’s ear. It’s dark and close, but not so horrifying with another body pressed against Touga’s own.

‘I have to,’ Touga answers. ‘There’s no need for both of us to suffer.’

Kyouichi holds onto him more tightly, almost painfully. ‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘This is still creepy for me, but it’s not my nightmare.’

‘Do you remember Juri’s story?’ Touga asks. ‘About the boy who drowned trying to save her sister?’

The cocoon breaks before Kyouichi can answer and they both arch backwards as their wings break through.

* * *

Juri’s standing on one side of the car like a particularly refined statue, her orange dress falling around her in sharp folds. Shiori sits on the other side of the bonnet, somehow girlish despite her student council uniform. Her eyes narrow as she catches Kyouichi’s and he can see the serpent underneath the flower. She slides off the bonnet and holds out a hand imperiously. Juri steps forward and takes it, lets Shiori guide her hand to her breast and then wraps the other arm around Shiori’s waist to support her as she pulls.

The sword that comes free is an elegant rapier, guard a spiral strip of metal. Juri lifts Shiori back to her feet and hands it to her. Shiori’s hand catches at the front of Juri’s dress and she frowns, unsatisfied. ‘Won’t you kiss me, Juri-san? For luck?’

Juri blushes like a sunset, the impression of marble lost in an instant. ‘No,’ she says, and steps away.

Touga draws Kyouichi’s sword as smoothly as before and leans across to put it in his hand. When he kisses Kyouichi’s lips, Kyouichi nearly ruins it by laughing. Shiori glares at them.

Kyouichi is expecting the car that swerves in front of his first strike. He remembers the car that had driven between Touga and Utena when they’d decided the arena during battle was a good place for a tender moment. He thinks that was Anthy’s doing, not his, but he can’t be sure of that. His sword screeches down the metal and he pulls it back quickly. Utena had an advantage in that fight that he doesn’t have now, when it came to splitting cars in half. His Bride’s soul is not protecting his sword and, while he’s glad of that since Touga is neither on his side nor strong enough for Kyouichi to want his soul separated from his body, he does wonder how much his sword can take.

Kyouichi jumps onto the car’s bonnet, lunging down at Shiori, but the car immediately swerves, throwing him off. By rolling he manages to come up on his feet, just in time to parry Shiori’s lunge and then dive out of the way of the next car.

‘Juri!’ he yells. Is she doing anything at all?

‘Juri?’ says Shiori, turning away from him for a moment. His sword comes within an inch of her rose before she notices and jumps backwards like a startled cat.

* * *

‘Juri?’ Touga says. He’s in the driver’s seat of the car, leaning out of it as he tries to make the cars on the arena do what he wants. He visualises them as remote control, imagines a controller in his hand.

Next to him Juri huffs and then one of the cars he was sending at Kyouichi swerves off course. It’s not the first. ‘Yes?’ she says. Two cars loop forward across the arena and hit one another, dropping metal and broken glass everywhere as they spin back to the edges. Kyouichi and Shiori almost dance around the cars, around the parts they drop, emerging from the smoke with uniforms darkened but blades still gleaming. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t want to save her?’

‘I thought you would want her to _win_.’

‘You didn’t think Saionji would tell me what that means.’

Cars heave up out of the ground, or fly in from the edges, one always blocked by another. The Duel is happening against a background noise of shattering glass and screaming metal. Touga tries to force his power outward, to take control of all the cars at once. He is the Rose Bride. Juri’s presence fills the arena just as much as his, though. They’re well matched. Neither of them finds it natural to trust to instinct and magic, neither of them is willing to give up. They burn like ice against one another while their Duelists dance like flames.

* * *

To Kyouichi’s increasing delight Shiori has nothing to taunt him with. Even as smoke gets into his eyes, even as embers burn his feet and twisted pieces of sheet metal trip him, the same is happening to her. Can she say his Bride is against him? What about hers? Can she say he’s being used? He isn’t, not this time. Can she say he’s useless, comment on his fighting? He defeated her quickly enough before. It feels like a triumph that she fights silently.

Juri and Touga whip past in a stream of bright hair, eyes intent, locked in their own silent battle.

Shiori pivots, turns to run alongside the car. Kyouichi moves back to pace her on the opposite side of the arena, looking for an opening while listening for the next car. Shiori’s sudden strike backwards, towards the car driving just behind her head, takes him off guard. He shouts Touga’s name, assuming she’d aim for his Bride, but no. Touga’s the one trying to help _her_ win.

* * *

Touga jumps when he hears Kyouichi shout for him, focus snapped away from the car he was sending inward. It drives off the edge of the arena just as he sees the sword striking across him towards Juri’s ribcage. Flinging himself backwards in the seat, he brings his leg up, hitting Shiori’s wrist with his knee. Taken off guard she falls, crumpling in the wake of the car and falling into its track where it will hit her the next time around.

Touga and Juri, for the first time in concert, force the car to stop. When Touga turns to look at his fellow Bride she’s white, clutching at her chest as she had so often done before. But this time it’s not the locket hidden there, it’s her heart.

* * *

Kyouichi was already running across the arena, knowing he’d be too late, and when Shiori falls he’s on her before she can get to her feet. Petals scatter, rising among the embers, purple against orange.

As soon as that’s done he runs to the car. ‘Juri, are you all right?’ He looks at her, doubled over clutching her heart, and then at Touga. ‘Is she?’

‘The sword didn’t reach her.’ Touga gets out of the car and then stumbles, landing on his knees in front of Kyouichi.

‘Damn it, are _you_ all right?’ Kyouichi asks.

Touga shakes his head. ‘You weren’t supposed to win. You didn’t have to.’

Kyouichi hauls him to his feet and drags him towards the gondola. He feels too overwhelmed to do anything other than the practical thing of getting everyone off the arena and back to where, hopefully, there will be someone other than him who isn’t falling to pieces. ‘Wait there,’ he says. He goes back to Shiori, who hasn’t moved. She claws his rose off when he picks her up and he says, ‘It’s too late for that,’ before dropping her inside the gondola. Juri fights him, more because she doesn’t want to be dragged anywhere than because she doesn’t want to get in the gondola, and he drags her anyway.

At the bottom, Miki and Wakaba meet them. ‘Juri-sempai, are you all right?’ they ask almost in concert.

Juri shakes her head, but smiles slightly at them, her hand clutching at her heart again. Behind them, Shiori slips away into the forest.

Touga’s leaning on Kyouichi, as shaky as he was after the first few Duels, but at least someone’s taking care of Juri now and Kyouichi can try to _deal_ with that. ‘I’m heading back to the tower,’ he says.

They all look at him and then Wakaba nods. ‘I’ll stay with Juri-sempai,’ she says.

‘Me too,’ says Miki.

* * *

In the tower room, Touga half collapses to sit on his bed and says, ‘Why?’

‘Because I’m not okay with leaving you to curl up in your coffin and die. Either we both get out or neither of us do,’ Kyouichi answers.

‘Nanami left,’ Touga says.

Kyouichi folds his arms. ‘That was her decision.’

Touga crumples into himself a little more. ‘You’re going to die.’

‘No, I’m not.’ He sounds so certain.

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because you won’t let me,’ Kyouichi says. ‘And I won’t let you die, either.’

Touga laughs, soundless and bitter. ‘That makes no _sense._ You can’t possibly think it’s worth the risk.’

Kyouichi grabs Touga’s shoulders and pushes him backwards, out of his curled up position. He’s glaring, but it’s more frustrated than angry. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘You want to know why? Because we’ve helped each other with homework and cheered each other at kendo matches. Because you always tease me even when you’re _not_ being a complete jerk. Because I’ve been horseback riding with you when I don’t know how to ride a horse, and we had fun at the beach, and you liked my stupid carving. Because you’re my best friend. I don’t like it when you act like a monster and I don’t like your dumbass Prince act either. But I like _you_.’

Maybe the real miracle is to find, after everything you’ve done, that someone is still reaching out to you. That someone sees something in you that would still be there if you pruned away everything cruel and awful, believes you’d be left with new growth instead of a bare stump.

‘You’re shaking,’ Kyouichi says, more gently. ‘Will you be okay if I go and make something hot to drink?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Touga says, feeling as if his voice is coming from far away. Hope hurts, like blood rushing back into a frozen limb.

He’s not sure how long it is before Kyouichi returns and pushes a mug into his hands. When he takes a mouthful he’s expecting tea and is surprised by the savoury warmth of soup.

‘Just drink it and don’t be difficult,’ Kyouichi says before Touga can comment. Touga obeys, gradually sipping the mug to the dregs and surprised by how much less shaky he feels afterwards. ‘Feel better?’ Kyouichi asks.

Touga nods meekly.

‘It’s weird to see you this subdued, especially when you’re not doing it to annoy me,’ Kyouichi mutters.

Touga remembers the times when he’d played Rose Bride, either passive-aggressively or more seriously, only to shake it off in an instant when it didn’t get the reaction he wanted. He wants to do that now, shake it away and smile wickedly, and suddenly be himself again. ‘I don’t like it either,’ he says.

* * *

Shiori trails along in the shadows while Juri and Wakaba walk along the sunlit paving between Ohtori’s buildings.

‘I already knew it wouldn’t work between us,’ Juri is saying. ‘But I don’t really believe she meant to kill me.’

‘Whether she did or not it was pretty shocking!’ says Wakaba. ‘Miki and I ran all the way to the arena and then panicked because the gondola wouldn’t take us.’

Juri’s voice contains a small smile that Shiori doesn’t need to see. ‘That was sweet of you.’

‘Ah, well. We’re friends, right, after all the time we’ve spent together this year?’

Shiori sneaks a little closer, enough to peer at them and see the light flush on Juri’s cheeks.

‘I think my part in this is over,’ Juri says. ‘I was wondering about doing something to take my mind off it.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ says Wakaba. ‘I know doing something I enjoy helps me when I have problems.’

‘Wakaba?’ Juri says. ‘This might sound silly, but have you ever been bowling?’

Shiori steps back, hands clenched so hard the nails dig into her palms. Is Juri asking someone out? Someone _else?_ When it’s too late for Shiori to do anything about it, now that she’s already lost? She turns her head sharply and stalks away, back into the shadows.

* * *

Kyouichi wakes up a few days later to find his head resting on Touga’s stomach. It doesn’t take long to realise Touga’s head is also resting on his, or that Touga’s worked his way around the odd spiral of their beds until he’s half hanging between them but curled firmly around Kyouichi. The wave of tenderness Kyouichi feels startles him and he finds himself smiling, feeling, despite everything, oddly happy.

Then he sees the letter lying on Touga’s vacated pillow.


	17. REVOLUTION

‘Just because you have the letter doesn’t mean we have to Duel straight away,’ Touga says. They’re standing in front of the forest hand in hand, as if they’re lost children and this is a different kind of fairy tale.

‘We may as well get it over with,’ Kyouichi says.

Touga looks up at the gate in front of them, the rose that will unfurl into a phoenix. ‘You don’t have a plan,’ he says. ‘You’ve never had a plan in your life.’

‘Neither did the previous Victor so at least I’m in good company,’ Kyouichi says. ‘Do you know what’s going to happen?’

‘No.’ Anthy would have, but Anthy would have done this again and again and back when she was new to it her brother would have been as well. ‘I’ll draw your sword as soon as we reach the top. Then you’ll have it for whatever comes next.’

Kyouichi nods and holds out his free hand, waiting for the water to hit it and the gate to open.

For the first time Touga doesn’t try to resist Kyouichi holding onto him as the cocoon forms. Whatever this is they’re in it together now. They arch back as their wings come through, hands still on one another’s waists.

At the top is the arena, smaller than usual and shining ghostly white as if it’s in a spotlight. Around it lies impenetrable darkness and the feel of the air, the stillness and silence and space of it, tells Touga there’s nothing hidden in that darkness. They’re standing in the emptiness at the Ends of the World.

Kyouichi can sense it too and he moves further towards the centre instinctively, head craning as he tries to make out something, anything, in that blackness. Touga catches his arm and pulls him back, reaches for his chest. They need to do this quickly. Even as light wells under Touga’s fingers he starts to hear footsteps, echoing impossibly in a space with no walls. He tugs the sword free as gently as he can manage in his haste and presses the silk-wrapped hilt into Kyouichi’s hand, then moves behind him.

Akio emerges, walking along a stone walkway that seems to come into existence as the light hits it. He’s wearing his Prince garb, white trimmed in gold and red, and he stops once he’s standing on the arena itself.

‘Welcome to Revolution,’ he says.

Kyouichi moves into position, katana held above his head, and his eyes flick over Akio in one scathing, assessing glance. ‘Where’s your sword?’ he asks.

‘Touga,’ Akio says, the word a command. Touga, thinking he wants the sword of Dios, shakes his head and puts one hand on Kyouichi’s shoulder where he stands behind him. Kyouichi readies himself to strike if Akio tries to reach for him.

A moment later Touga’s choking on pain, the swords that have tormented him for months suddenly solid and real, a forest of blades sprouting from his skin. The point of Kyouichi’s sword dips towards the ground, Kyouichi’s grip suddenly loose with horror. Touga slips to his knees, slams his hands to the ground to try and hold himself up. Akio reaches for Kyouichi’s blade almost casually and Kyouichi snaps it up at once, bristling like a porcupine as his grip tightens.

Akio shrugs and reaches past him, pulls one of the black-hilted blades free of Touga. Touga falls sideways as he does, lying crumpled on what now seems to be stairs. The blades vanish. They’re not gone, they’re still running through him, but they’re not quite real again, not marking his body, not sickeningly visible.

Rolling onto his back he gasps for air, panting against the pain constricting his lungs. A huge orb looms over him, the statue of a prince seated on its side. The statue has been broken and only poorly mended, clearly visible lines of plaster running through it, but even so it seems to stare down at him with pity.

* * *

‘Touga!’ Kyouichi shouts, watching his friend turn blank eyes to the statue above him. He rounds furiously on Akio. ‘What did you do to him? You couldn’t just bring your own damn sword?’

‘I did nothing new,’ Akio says. ‘This is no more than what he’s been suffering all along. The swords haven’t truly arrived. Not yet.’

_When they do, will they kill him?_ He can’t bring himself to say it with Touga lying almost at his feet. There has to be some hope for them, still. Hope that if Kyouichi can defeat Akio they can still leave before the swords arrive. That it’s not too late for Touga to become more than a sacrifice to whatever Akio is hoping to gain.

Above them the castle appears, turning slowly in its own light, glowing like the dream it is. ‘What’s that doing there?’ Kyouichi asks. ‘I know it’s not real.’

‘You know that, but you still value it,’ says Akio. In the background the projector clicks and cars sprout out of the arena floor, numerous red ones at crazy angles and one black one, Touga’s, slanting up as crazily as any of them. ‘You’re still a child. You tell yourself that you’ve grown up because you dream of eternal friendship in a cottage instead of in a castle. Or is it eternal love now?’

Kyouichi lunges and Akio parries, blades clashing. ‘I know it’s not eternal,’ Kyouichi says while their blades meet twice more. He puts his back against a car as Akio moves to circle him. ‘Nothing is.’ The projector clicks again and the arena is empty, forcing Kyouichi to turn and pace Akio. ‘Quit playing with me!’

‘This isn’t playing.’ The arena snaps back to the cars, just in time for Akio to lunge and drive Kyouichi back into one. Kyouichi manages to slide sideways as the sword nearly hits his rose. ‘This is the only real Duel you will ever fight and you’re too naive to recognise that. You fight for power, as everyone does, but won’t even acknowledge it.’

Around them the arena fills with school desks, each one bearing a butterfly in a frame with wings as checkered as Kyouichi’s cloak.

‘Shut up!’ Kyouichi shouts, his swing going wild as he attempts to lunge around the desks. Akio doesn’t even bother to parry or return a blow, just takes a half-step out of the way and smiles. ‘All I want is Touga!’

‘I thought you’d say you wanted his freedom,’ Akio says. ‘But honesty has always been one of your better qualities.’

‘SHUT UP!’ Kyouichi’s cry echoes throughout the arena. The desks snap together, making four blocks, the frames falling face down as they do, hiding the leaves they contain. Kyouichi throws himself forward across that now empty space, feeling a level of hatred and rage beyond anything he’d thought possible, beyond anything that had caused him to lash out at Utena. He wants Akio dead and there is no doubt or regret in him for that because Akio deserves it completely.

Akio steps forward as if to parry the blow but at the last moment lowers his sword and spreads his arms. The sword that should pierce through his rose and into the heart beneath it is no longer in Kyouichi’s hands.

A choked, gurgling cry echoes around them and Kyouichi turns to see Touga impaled by the katana, cloak spread out around him, like a butterfly pinned to a card.

* * *

Akio wrenching the sword from where it sticks through Touga’s chest isn’t at all like having his sword drawn. Even the half-remembered spasming pain of Keiko drawing it with a black rose on her chest can’t come close. He can feel that the damage it’s done coming out is worse than the damage it did going in. Warm blood is soaking through his white tunic, life spilling out of him and onto the cold floor.

‘Hate and resentment aimed at the Prince can only ever wound the Bride,’ Akio is saying, somewhere far away.

‘You _bastard._ ’ Kyouichi’s voice is choked with tears.

Around him Touga can hear the scrape of metal, the susurrus of _witchwitchwitch_. The swords are approaching with a reality and finality they’ve never had before, like a storm, or an army, or a mob. ‘They’re coming,’ he says, voice feeble.

Akio looks up as a ring of whirling metal forms around the arena and Touga can see the real fear in his expression. If his human Bride can’t hold out, if Touga dies too soon, will the swords finally reach the Prince? Not much of a triumph, to finally wound his master by being an inadequate sacrifice. _He doesn’t…_ He presses a hand against the wound in his chest and shivers. _He doesn’t want to die!_

A walkway of red carpeted stone appears, leading off into the darkness around the arena. At the end of it lies a gate like the one into the forest, the same white rose surmounting it. There are thorned branches across it, holding it shut, but no blooms, just the swell of rose hips.

‘The Rose Gate,’ Akio says, almost reverently. ‘Behind it lies the power of Dios. Finally.’ He places one foot on the walkway and as the echo rings out all the swords turn to him like needles swinging towards a magnet. Touga can feel their intent, their malevolence. He trembles harder, burying his face against his arm, waiting for the pain to start.

* * *

Every sword is trembling with eagerness, like dogs about the slip their leashes. Every sword longs to bury itself in Touga’s flesh, Kyouichi knows. He doesn’t know anything else, he doesn’t understand anything at all, but he knows it’s Akio’s journey towards the gate that is attracting them, bringing them so close to reality. He knows if they attack Touga might not survive.

Kyouichi throws himself forward, unarmed, and grabs the blade of his own heartsword. With all the strength in his body he tries to haul Akio back onto the arena, even as steel cuts his fingers to the bone.

‘You —’ Akio’s startled enough to stumble and it lets Kyouichi pull him back to the very edge of the arena. ‘What are you hoping to accomplish?’

Kyouichi drops to his knees, making himself into dead weight, tears of pain running down his face. ‘I won’t let you take a path that kills Touga!’

The desks snap back into existence behind him, butterflies taking off from the cards to fly away in a flurry of checkered wings.

* * *

A hand strokes Touga’s forehead and he lifts his head from his arm to see the worried blue eyes of Tenjou Utena. ‘You have to do something,’ she says.

‘I can’t fight Akio-sama,’ Touga whispers. He can see what Kyouichi’s doing, the bravery and foolishness of a defiance that can’t possibly last. Already there is blood running down his hands, sweat and tears running down his face as his grip starts to fail.

‘Then run,’ Utena says.

‘I can’t.’ Touga’s Bride outfit becomes a tattered white shirt, open across the chest, a broken hair tie appears tangled in his hair. Above them the swords strobe into cabbage white butterflies and back. ‘He’s too strong. He’d catch me. And when he caught me he’d make me regret running.’

‘All right,’ she says. Her hand takes his, warm and soft. ‘Just lie quietly, then. You’ll die soon and then it will be over. You’ll be free of this sickening world.’ He blinks as her voice gets higher and she’s a little girl leaning over him in her black dress.

‘I don’t want to die,’ he whispers like a secret. There are tears on his face now, and she brushes them away with gentle fingers. ‘And what about Kyouichi?’ He turns to look at where his friend is still clinging to the blade as Akio pulls him closer and closer to the edge, Akio’s face twisting with effort as he tries to get enough leverage to either cut through Kyouichi’s fingers or shake him off into the void. ‘Will he die too?’

‘Does it matter, if there’s nothing you can do?’ Her voice is no longer a little girl’s voice and there’s something more biting there than sympathy.

‘There’s nothing…’ But there’s nothing Kyouichi can do either, and he’s trying with every ounce of the stubborn loyalty that drives him.

Touga lets go of Utena’s hand and rolls over to push himself painfully to his knees. The swords are a hurricane of metal, whipping around the edges of the arena, voices as sharp as their blades. The arena itself is a maelstrom of illusion. He wants to help. He wants to cower back against the steps and retreat into himself until it’s over.

Utena stands up and walks away from him, past the struggle at the edge of the walkway, going faster and faster until she’s running down the walkway. For a moment the gate at the end of it seems to be open, Anthy turning to meet her in a whirl of pink skirts and purple hair. Their arms close around one another, their lips meet, and the gate is solid marble, rose vines holding it as tightly shut as it ever was.

He braces himself against the floor with one hand, the other pressing against his chest, and closes his eyes against a wave of dizziness. It would be so much easier to give into it, to lie down again and never get up.

Something warm and soft nudges against his cheek with a softly anxious, ‘mrrrrp?’

‘Tora-chan?’ He opens his eyes and his cat is standing there, in the middle of the impossible arena, with car keys in her mouth. She drops them by his hand and butts her head against his cheek again. As the projector clicks cars rise crazily from the floor. Among the red ones, one of them is black.

Touga stumbles to his feet, hoping Akio is too focused on Kyouichi to notice. His vision blurs, but Tora runs back and forth in front of him, making soft little trills, so he trusts to the cat and follows her, staggering between cars, pushing himself from one to the next, until he finds himself leaving red handprints on shiny black. The car’s tilted upwards, back wheels buried in the arena, but he climbs into the back and hauls himself between the front seats, leaving blood on the gear shift.

He manages to get himself into the front seat, facing upwards as if he was in a rocket ready for launch, and leans back gasping. His vision is dark around the edges even without the literal darkness of the sky around the arena. Tora nips at his hand, mewing urgently, and he realises how close he came to passing out. He nods at her and shoves the keys into the ignition on the second try.

* * *

It’s Akio’s head that snaps up at the sound of a car engine. Kyouichi would have dismissed it as just another illusion, just another trick of the ever changing arena, but his gaze follows Akio’s. The black car is heaving itself up like a whale breaching, back wheels emerging from solid stone. It lifts into the air with the whirr of wheels spinning on nothing and then slams down like a thunderclap.

Kyouichi grins, wild and feral, and tries to pull Akio into its path by the blade of the sword, using the last strength in his numb and burning hands. Akio lets go of the hilt and jumps back, out of the path of the car as it screeches to a halt between the combatants. Kyouichi pulls the sword into his arms, cradling it against him as blood runs down its blade and soaks into his uniform.

Touga leans across and throws the passenger side door open. There’s blood soaking his uniform so that he looks more like a red admiral than a cabbage white and his hands are shaking on the wheel but his eyes are steel bright. He’s here, fully present in his own body, despite the pain he’s enduring.

‘Get in,’ he snaps, a note of command in his voice that has Kyouichi scrambling into the passenger seat before he’s registered it.

He can’t get the door closed, his hands are all but useless. Despite that, despite the fact that they’re on a stone arena in the middle of endless nothingness, despite the swords whirling just beyond them, Touga revs the engine. Tora twines back and forth from Touga’s shoulder to Kyouichi’s purring to match it.

Akio is watching them like they’re children doing something foolish, but there’s an edge of uncertainty behind that cool gaze. ‘There’s nowhere to go,’ he says. ‘This is the End of the World.’

Touga glances at Kyouichi and Kyouichi can read the question in his eyes. He nods.

‘The End of _your_ World,’ Touga says. He hits the accelarator.

Behind them Akio calls, ‘WAIT!’ but they’re already gone.

* * *

The swords hit the car in an exposion of metal, peeling strips from it, piercing holes in it, smashing the windscreen to shards of glass. Tora disappears into the footwell, curling up where they can’t reach her, Touga and Kyouichi have no such respite.

Touga’s foot stays pressed down on the accelerator. He’s not sure whether this is endless, the darkness and the swords, but he can’t stop _now_. He should have agreed to leave sooner. He shouldn’t have needed Revolution to make him try.

‘Sorry,’ he whispers.

Kyouichi’s trembling beside him, eyes wide like a child scared of the dark, but he shifts to press their shoulders together. ‘We’re going to make it,’ he says, and then, as if he can’t hold it back. ‘Aren’t we?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not giving up, but I don’t know.’

They both fall silent, enduring through darkness and pain until finally, ahead of them, is light.

The ordinary road they suddenly emerge onto, the trees, the sunlight, the blue car parked on the side of the road, seem more surreal than anything they could imagine after the terrors of the Duel. Touga realises he’s still pressing the accelorator and takes his foot off it just as they hit a wall. He’s thrown forward, the steering wheel thudding into his already wounded chest, and then he hears someone scream.

‘Big brother! Kyouichi!’ Nanami’s throwing open the door, yelling for someone to call emergency services. He’s watching her more than listening to her, the reality of her proof that this really is the outside world. ‘Big brother!’ she says, as if she’s said it a few times already. ‘How badly does it hurt?’

‘Less than usual.’ No new swords slipping through him, no new invisible cuts, no whispers of _witch_ or _whore_. ‘I’m just cold.’

‘You’ve lost a lot of blood.’ She sounds like she’s fighting back panic. ‘Someone’s coming, okay? An ambulance. Stay awake. Both of you!’

Kyouichi laughs, a choked half-hysterical sound and when Touga looks at him he shakes his head, grinning through tears. ‘We really made it.’

Touga wraps a hand around Kyouichi’s wrist, not sure whether to smile or cry himself. ‘We really did.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue to come.


	18. Epilogue

Christmas Eve is, as every shop window seems intent on reminding Touga, a time for lovers. Despite that he’s not seeing anything Kyouichi would want.

‘What are you two doing for Christmas?’ Nanami asks.

‘I don’t know. I don’t think he’s going to like it whatever I do. He’d want me to acknowledge our relationship, but…’

‘…But he’s seen you do romantic things with every girl that crosses your path,’ Nanami finishes.

Touga nods, feeling as cheap and tacky as the gifts in the window. ‘Besides, he’s in a bad mood all the time right now. He yelled at me for chopping carrots wrong the other day.’

Nanami winces. ‘Are his hands doing okay?’

‘The doctors say so. He’ll be able to have the splints off in a couple of weeks. That’s going to feel like a bigger celebration than Christmas.’ Kyouichi’s driving himself mad with pent up energy, however many walks he goes on. Touga’s handling cooking and cleaning under supervision, which, while necessary, doesn’t help with Kyouichi’s longing to _do_ things. Touga wants to make Kyouichi happy, but can’t think of a gift that would do that when the real problem is that Kyouichi is bored and feeling useless. ‘I don’t have any money, anyway. You’re still paying our rent.’

‘I’ll pay for a present for Kyouichi, too, if you want to get one,’ Nanami says. ‘Mother never notices what I spend money on as long as it’s cash.’

‘That’s not exactly a present from me.’

‘It’s meant to be the thought that counts,’ says Nanami. ‘So think.’

Touga tosses his head back, a habit he’s yet to break despite his newly short hair, and looks around at the shops for inspiration. He finds it somewhere unexpected.

* * *

It’s afternoon on the twenty-fourth and Kyouichi wonders whether they’re doing anything special that evening. It doesn’t feel like a day for anything special, sun and haze combining to make a blank grey sky.

The doorbell rings and Touga jumps up to answer it. Kyouichi can hear him talking to someone outside for a while before he returns with Kyouichi’s coat and shoes with the slightly fey look in his eyes that says he’s up to something. ‘Here, let’s get these on and then you can come outside and see your present,’ he says, dropping to kneel on the floor and removing Kyouichi’s house slippers.

‘I don’t need shoes and a coat just to look at something outside,’ Kyouichi says.

‘Trust me,’ Touga answers, and Kyouichi lets himself be manouvred into coat and shoes before following Touga outside.

There’s a silver tandem bike leaning against the wall.

‘Are you sure that’s a present for _me?_ ’ he asks as Touga wheels it over and settles into the front seat. Then, as the thought strikes him, ‘Should you be riding a bike?’

Touga’s injuries are less limiting than Kyouichi’s, but for now he still tires easily and isn’t meant to strain himself. He grins at Kyouichi. ‘That’s why it’s a tandem. I can leave you to do most of the work.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Kyouichi climbs onto the back seat, careful with no hands to balance him. There are a second pair of handlebars almost hidden under Touga’s saddle, but they’re useless with white medical splints covering Kyouichi’s hands and bending them into paws. Instead he wraps his arms around Touga. It’s a familiar position, but not with one foot resting on pedals and the other ready to push off.

‘Ready?’ Touga asks.

‘Ready,’ says Kyouichi.

‘Go!’

Kyouichi throws himself into pedalling and is encouraged when Touga laughs as they whip around a corner. With the streets nearly empty they’re less careful than they should be with still healing injuries, but Kyouichi’s revelling in the movement. The wind whips his hair out behind him and blows fresh air into his lungs and he decides the day isn’t as dull as it had looked from inside.

‘Go left, uphill,’ he says when they reach a turning a while later. It’s still early in the evening but it’s just starting to get dark.

‘Hope you’re prepared to do the pedalling.’ He can hear how short of breath Touga is, but he turns uphill and Kyouichi pedals harder, leaning his head against Touga’s back as he does and feeling the burn in his muscles.

They come to a stop at the top of the hill, the lights of the town spread out below them. Standing next to the bike Kyouichi feels calm, for the first time in weeks not quivering with restless energy under his skin. ‘Thanks,’ he says, realising the present was the ride far more than the bike. ‘Sorry I’ve been so bad-tempered.’

Touga wraps an arm around his waist. ‘Do you really think I’ll hold that against you now?’

‘No. Doesn’t mean I want to be a jerk to you.’

‘You’re not.’ Touga kisses him lightly and then Kyouichi wraps his arms around him to pull him closer, kissing back more deeply. It’s only when a few flakes of sleet fall on them that they come back to where they are. ‘We should head home,’ Touga says.

* * *

Touga arrives home tired but justifiably smug about how much calmer Kyouichi is for their outing. Kyouichi, for his part, disappears into the kitchen and returns with a houseplant held awkwardly between immobilised hands. Touga’s honestly impressed he managed to hide it.

‘This is for you,’ Kyouichi says.

It’s a strange sort of plant that seems unlikely to appear in any fairy tales and Touga’s first thought is that it’s a nice change from roses. The flowers are dainty and yellow and its leaves are deep green and wildly curly — rather like Kyouichi’s hair, although he probably didn’t buy it for the resemblance. Touga touches one of the flowers with a smile and then picks up the label to see what it is.

‘Trachyandra revoluta?’ he asks, trying not to laugh.

Kyouichi shrugs, awkward as he always is about gift giving, but not without amusement himself.

‘Thank you,’ Touga says. ‘It’s a good plant.’ He looks down at it pensively until Kyouichi nudges him.

‘What’s wrong?’ Kyouichi asks.

‘If you tell a lie often enough you can’t tell the truth in the same words,’ Touga says. ‘But if there are no other words then you can’t say anything at all.’

Kyouichi groans and buries his face against Touga’s shoulder. ‘You’re lucky I’m in a good mood tonight because I still have _no_ idea what your problem is.’

Touga shakes his head. ‘I love you. And I’d find a more romantic way to say it, but I think I used up all the romantic ways.’

Kyouichi snorts a laugh, still against his shoulder, and then looks up, eyes wide and soft and cheeks red. ‘At least I know you’re being honest when you’re this awkward about it,’ he says, then adds in a mumble, ‘Love you too.’

‘Is that why you’re always awkward?’

‘Jerk,’ says Kyouichi. ‘Still love you, though. And if we’re having take out for dinner you’ll have to order.’

* * *

So they live, like plants in winter, a life dormant and suspended. The tandem sees a great deal of use as they learn the woods around their new town the way they’d once learned the ones around Ohtori. Kyouichi takes back the cooking as soon as his splints are off and collects piles of job postings clipped from newspapers against the day he’s healed enough to apply for them. Touga sleeps a great deal, eats even when he doesn’t feel like it, and recovers vitality by the day. Nanami visits like a bright bird from a busier life, offering inexpert help around the house and cheerful gossip.

And the world turns towards spring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a real trip to write and, while "fun" is perhaps not the right word, the speed I've been posting probably tells you how much I got into it. Thank you very much to everyone who left kudos or commented! And special thanks to ASWF who has been a consistent, enthusiastic and very motivating commenter :D


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